


The Adventure Zone: The Raven Queen's Request

by Cythieus



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Eventual Romance, F/M, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:03:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11881812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cythieus/pseuds/Cythieus
Summary: Spoilers for Episode 69 of the Adventure Zone Podcast.Takes place after the final arc of the game and twenty years later. The Raven Queen detects a threat to her domain in the Shadowfell and enlists the help of our boys. But things aren't always goof-goof dildo when you're hanging out with Boner Squad.Sometimes the Goddess of Death (and your boyfriend's boss) needs you to see who's hijacking the undead for their own means.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write something with the boys for a long time and with the end being so near I waited to start it after all that business was done with. Some quick things, some of the characters are original creations from other things I've been working on or D&D games that I've played in. 
> 
> Hope everyone likes it, enjoy! And sorry about the title...I'm not so great at those.

The gods aren’t truly eternal, not in the way that you would believe a thing to be forever lasting. They would someday be snuffed out when the planes exhausted the last of their energy and ceased to move in harmony anymore and all things ended.

Some of the gods wouldn’t even make it to that far off time. They warred with each other and the structure of powers changed. Or when a god had need for something outside of their scope or range, deals would be brokered for favors or control of entire domains of power. This is how the Raven Queen became to hold dominion over Death and Fate and Winter—how she came to sit atop the throne once held by another.

This is why she kept her eye on the machinations of the other Gods in their domains. She removed herself from their immediate influence and took up residence in Shadowfell. And other than a brief bout with Lolth to gain a portion of her power, she stayed out of the squabbles of the gods that existed in the rest of the immaterial plane.

And that is why she was the first to notice the change; it was small at first, not the way that the Hunger had been years before with its sudden severing of bonds between the planar network. This was a smaller thing, more pin-point accurate. Something was granting a portion of power to the undead in the material plane.

It wouldn’t have been noticed by anyone on the ground. Even the necromancers who schemed to break the very law which she held above all else wouldn’t have felt their influence being tampered with. The shift was only something that she would be looking for. The vital thread of magic that connected undead to the plane where their energy derived and connected their maker to their control was drawing influence from a second place. A plane she couldn’t see. A thirteenth plane.

Delicate. That was the word. She was so isolated from the world for so long that she had forgotten her own name, her mother’s face, the area that she was born in. Any history or connections that the Raven Queen had were lost to time. So for her to go trouncing about the planes to solve this mystery would draw attention from the other gods. It would be seen as weakness, a chance to strike a deal with her.

Kravtiz, her confidant and avatar had been crucial to stopping the Hunger. It was unusual for her to be this sentimental, but she had kept a souvenir. The remnant of the enemy that had sailed through countless realities devouring all in a perverse attempt to be the only thing and then, later out of gluttony and need: John.

The Raven Queen wasn’t very good with names. She had seen billions of lives come and go in her time, but she needed a name from this John. Ravens made of living shadow of Shadowfell toyed with him day and night, slicing bits of him off and giving his form time to remake itself into a cognitive image of the person who first left his home plane hundreds of years ago. And then beginning to do it all over again.

She rarely checked in on John, but this time when she paid him a visit he seemed to sense something had changed. He stopped screaming long enough to lift his head and stare into her eye. Light emanated from some unseen source just enough for him to see her pale face and the shimmering dress that she wore made of feather and shadow.

“You set out to devour eternity and become everything and you lost control in the end. You were bested in combat by three heroes. One of them happens to be involved with a servant of mine, a beautiful Elven man. Name him. Name the three.” Her voice was hollow and curt.

John smiled, wide and white, though blood streaked his face and one of his eyes was swollen over.

“You astonish me, John. You assume that helping to undo a grave wrong is penance for having done it in the first place. You exist here because within that eternity that you sought to control was me—you died within the bubble of my small planar system while trying to unseat all of Creation and our prize for that was me going through the trouble of having my lovely ravens reassemble your soul just to bring you here for special treatment.” She grabbed him by the chin with a black gloved hand shaking his head side to side.

“Name the three and your punishment ends now. I shall return you to the nothingness from which you were reassembled.”

John laughed, that forced laugh that he must have reserved for speaking engagements and dinner parties where he was uninterested in the topic of conversation, but needed to play nice. 

“You can be free of this. You can finally rest.” She pulled him by the chin until he was staring into her purple eyes. The thing about the Raven Queen is she is beautiful and she is terrifying. She looks human, but in an unsettling way that screams ‘wrong’ and when she speaks to John the next time she’s yelling and the screech of a bird echoes from somewhere. “The names!”

“Merle…Taako…Magnus…” John manages to say.

How could she forget Taako from TV? She nods knowingly and the stories of their travels flood back over her. If they could stop John on his petty quest, then they’d surely investigate this other plane and its syphoning control of undead. And of course, they could keep her name out of it.

“Thank you for your cooperation.”

The last thing that John saw was the Raven Queen throw her head back as if to laugh, the feathery dress that crossed her chest just above the breast line seemed to lurch up her chest and shoulder blades and her neck. The plumage of the features spread like the top of a palm tree and her face blackened and stretched to form a beak and for her eyes to pull back into large dark orbs. A human-sized raven stood before him and let out a cry before crushed his head with a crack.

He felt the snap of bones he shouldn’t have had anymore and then John felt nothing at all.

John ceased to exist.

* * *

We’re a raven sailing over the expansive forest of the Nentir Vale on an eastbound wind through a near cloudless sky. The trees below are thick, green and rolling. They stretch up so far that we’re having to push up higher than normal, catch updrafts of warm air and soar up off of them, flapping furiously to keep momentum and altitude.

Further east are the Whitefall mountains, barely visible on the horizon even from our height. At our back is the Sword Coast, the jewel of the continent and housing the most expansive populations of peoples in the material plane.

We push further east over clearings and small stone ruins left by long dead civilizations, the start of bridges arcing over the forest too big to have been constructed for humans—remnants from the Age of Giants an unfathomable amount of time before the here and now.

A river pokes out through a clearing beneath us and we bank and curve to follow it as it snakes through a more sparse part of the wilderness and finally opens up into a wide inland lake that we might have feared to be the eastern coast if not for the mountains still looming in the distance. And we fly over the expanse of rippling water with the sun silvering its surface and being broken here and there by waves. We fly for hours, though time isn’t measured in minutes or hours to a bird, we know it to be a long time.

We’re forced to beat our wings against the moist air to keep our height and when the forest finally comes into view, we glide lower to rest and sit along the banks of the massive lake. There’s a _woosh_ and then a sharp pain followed by pressure and we’re tumbling end over end. The sound of the air around us as we dive out of control spiraling toward the ground.

The dirt shore sprinkled with driftwood is coming too fast and the attempts to move our wings result in pain. And then everything goes black.

* * *

A tall woman with red hair and hooked ram-like horns at either side of her head stands on the shore in a white dress adorned with gold trim and jangly golden jewelry. Her thick, knee-high boots are digging into mud as she braces against the force of the spell that she’s casting: a sheet of wind that sweeps from an unseen force over the water pushing the spiraling body of a bird back toward the land. The creature whirls like a top, an arrow jutting out of its middle as it bounces on the wind.

She halts her prayer as the bird reaches the land, but its still high up and falling fast with the arrow making its direction unpredictable and by the time that it is predictable it’s too late. It’s headed right for her face. She throws her hands up and lets out a scream.

And the bird never makes contact. Instead it floats a few feet from her held up by a spectral hand. A wavering, enthusiastic voice sounds behind her. “She’s already more Cleric than we got out of you.” Taako was approaching her from behind with his wand raised as he held his cast of Mage Hand, though it looked like he was expending very little effort on doing so. “She healed a villager days ago and I haven’t seen her cast Zone of Truth once. Wait, my man, you said you’re teaching her?”

“Yeah, I’m guiding her. Setting an example,” Merle said, his face as red as a baked ham though whether it was from the strain of his pack or the heat wasn’t clear.

Taako plucked the dead bird out of the air by the arrow. “Annemarie, baby, you’ve got to jump ship on Merle’s _Jules walking the Earth_ bullshit and come on down to my Arcana academy.”

This wasn’t the first time that Taako had made this offer to Annemarie and she smiled with her mace held nervously down at her side. “No thank you, I’m fine where I am.” Merle had given her a chance when most sects of Pelor were at least somewhat suspect of her. A Tiefling was still thought to be in league with the infernal planes. Merle didn’t see her that way though, he had lived with jellyfish or talking wolves and even made friends with the Lord of Ruination, John.

Merle didn’t discriminate.

“Sorry about that one!” Magnus Burnsides bounds over a thick hollow long carrying at set of squirrels and rabbits and birds strung up together. Dinner. “It was further out than I thought.”

“I think it’s fine, big guy,” Taako says. “But, um, how much do you think we eat? You’ve got a feast slung over your shoulder—you know I’ve got, like, spells for that and stuff.”

“We won’t always be able to count on magic, we’ve got to prepare for the worst—if we’re going to make sure that people are ready to survive when…well when shit gets bad.” Magnus’s hair was white and poked up in short spikes on his head, except his sideburns, they were dark and faded back to white as they extended down into his stubble.

Merle and Taako looked the same after twenty years. Merle with his faded rust colored beard and sun-roughened leathery skin. Taako still blonde and lithe with skin the color of driven snow—Taako would look the same when he lived ten more of Magnus’s lifetimes, as was the nature of the children of Corellon.

Magnus was pushing fifty now, his skin reddened and aged in the sun. He was still massive and fit and though he could feel himself slowing down some he’d always been so ahead of the average that it didn’t seem to stop him from still doing what he did best. Helping others.

“We need to make camp soon,” Merle mused.

“Yeah, especially if you expect me to cook all of this,” Taako said.

“We don’t expect anything too fancy,” Magnus said.

Taako scoffed. “I don’t know, I’ve got a reputation to maintain. I don’t want the kid going back and blabbing to the world that I’m some kind of phony.”

“Oh,” Annemarie said, actually startled. “Me?”

“Rail-splitter a few trees down,” Taako said ignoring the question. “I’m going to try and magic us up a proper kitchen so we can see what we can do with all this.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Raven Queen speaks to our boys in her home plane of the Shadowfell. Magnus worries about Julia. Merle worries about his cousin. Taako worries about his 9:00 AM tee time. 
> 
> Annemarie's...there too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to stick with an "It's Always Sunny..." naming theme for chapters. Somehow that feels like it fits.

From her position, laying on her side Annemarie was looking up at Magnus, Merle, and Taako sitting in a sort of semi-circle in front of her. They spoke in tones barely above the crackling of their camp fire about their trip on the Rockport Limited and how a train almost became a permanent fixture in the streets of Neverwinter.

She was born in the calm since the Day of Song and Story. The older folk forgot that this wisdom that had been imparted to them so matter-of-a-factly wasn’t with everyone. It was special bond shared by all generations before hers, but it was something she was left out of. In return, she got something different.

The trio spoke of a great battle in the narrow halls of a train, Magnus wishing that it could have spilled onto the train top just for the experience of saying he’d fought atop a moving train. Merle chimed in about how they had met Angus McDonald—he was a handsome wizard that Annemarie had met from time to time and whom Merle had nothing but praise for. Taako remembered how he had stolen some loot from right under the noses of the rest of the group and Magnus looked angry for a moment, but then the three of them were laughing.

And then the crackling of the fire was the only sound. It was dark outside of the small circle of red-orange light cast by the glow of the fire. She reached her hand out toward the flame watching the silhouette of palm and fingers against the backdrop of fire.

Taako had been wrong about the food, of course. They had devoured the entirety of the meal without a problem. It had been a long time since Merle and Magnus had regularly gotten to eat anything Taako prepared, so they seemed to take full advantage of this.

“Jenkins was a bit of a twat, but you put a few drinks in him and he gets better,” Taako said when the quiet had become uncomfortable.

“When was what now?” Magnus asks leaning over bracing his huge hands against the ground.

“Oh, it was a thing I did with Kravitz—we got tore up with Jenkins and Magic Bryan in the Ethereal Plane. They’re alright guys when you get past all of the _thrall of powerful items_ BS.”

Merle rubbed his rough wooden hand against his forehead. “So many questions.”

Magnus shushed them and pushed off to his feet, his bones popping as he steadied himself against his huge axe. He brought it up over his shoulder, choking his grip up on the long, worn handle.

Taako was just still, he could hear it too. He comes to his full height muttering an incantation until the outline between him and the objects around him is almost indistinguishable. It looks like he’s part of a picture that’s just out of focus, but it only affects him.

With his arm outstretched, Merle throws open his battered copy of the _Extreme Teen Bible_ and surveys the tree line. “Remember what I taught you, kid.” He glances back at Annemarie and the sound is more apparent now. The beating of thousands of wings somewhere through the forest, the screech of birds all around them.

Then the wind rushes through their camp and the first is blown out, everything is cast into darkness.

“You fucked with the wrong crew, bucko. This isn’t a fight you want to get into.”

Taako, Merle, and Annemarie could still see, but Magnus was practically blind in the dark. Annemarie touched the head of her Morningstar as she muttered a prayer to Pelor. When she held it high brilliant light erupted in a dome around them.

The birds they heard were a little further out, but the edge of the light circle illuminated them now. Their dark bodies flitting along between the trees and passing through any place they could find a gap. Suddenly Magnus was sorry that he’d eaten those birds.

Purple flame popped to life in the fire pit behind them and Annemarie’s light spell was snuffed out. The scene around them was bathed in the light from the large fire that mysteriously didn’t seem to be giving off any heat.

And the temperature was dropping.

The sky clouded over and a torrential rain overtook them. Taako threw up a quick cast of force wall above their heads in the pointed shape of a roof. Rain poured off of the invisible structure on either side of them.

“What was all th—“ Magnus only got part of the word out before there was an explosive clap of thunder and something impossibly hot arced through all of them, wrapping around through the group. Explosive pain overtook them and they collapsed into the freshly wet dirt as the rain stopped just as rapidly as it had started. The sound of birds was gone and the dying embers of yellow first flickered in the pit between their four bodies.

* * *

 For a moment Merle panics. Everything is inky blackness around him and the color is drained from his arms and clothes. He can see his companions all in monochrome and looking as confused as he is. He wonders if this is the Hunger, could it have found some way to get back? Had there been another John who talked a whole world into the same hunt for eternity?

This was different than the Hunger had ever been. They were certainly inside of _this_ , but they weren’t mindless or dead. He worried that they had been mindless for twenty years—they had lost and this is what happens to you. You dream of a better world while the Hunger uses your form to rampage across the cosmos.

“I realize that this may be improper, but bringing you to death’s doorstep was the only way I could be sure our conversation remained…between us.” The voice came from everywhere at first and the blackness around them pulsed and moved. As if she had been there all along a woman in a dress of purple trim adorned with dark, shimmering feathers stood in front of them. Her skin was white to the point that it seemed to be emitting light and two massive ravens were perched on her shoulders. She fed the creatures out of her gloved hands, rubbing the sides of their faces and necks lovingly.

Magnus was without weapons, but he had never needed weapons to take care of a problem, he pulled his burly fists up in front of him to stand at guard. “You said that you had to put us at death’s door to speak to us? Just who the fuck do you think you are you Necromatic fuck?”

“I’m Death. I was being literal, I had to bring you to my door to talk to you. See, this is why I don’t like ‘figures of speech’, ‘turns of phrase’ or ‘colloquialisms’. They just invite chaos. And not the interesting kind of chaos—more like the _Three’s Company_ goofy mix-up type,” said the woman who claimed to be Death.

Magnus dropped his hands to his side. “I’m not sure I follow…”

Annemarie dropped to the ground in a solemn bow. “Are you the Raven Queen?”

“Circle gets the square. I gathered the three of you—you were just a victim of circumstance—“ she says this pointing at Annemarie, “—to look into something for me.”

“You’re the Goddess of Death, why not look into it yourself?” Taako asks.

“Expect to be off the list for any future company Candle Night’s parties…” the Raven Queen said. “I could easily tear through the Material Plane looking for whatever is the cause of this. I could send Kravtiz or Barry or Lup to look for it—but those things would be noticed by other gods as out of the ordinary and they would be noticed by whoever I’m looking for.”

Merle sighed. “What could be that important to keep secret?” He glanced around to see that Annemarie was gone and the panic welled up in him again.

“Someone is manipulating mindless undead from off plane. They do so without the necromancers who actually make the abominations knowing what’s up. What’s more is that the plane that they’re doing this from doesn’t seem to be one that I can see or have heard of. Whether they plan to wrestle control away or use them to some other ends I don’t know. But it looks irresponsible of me if someone uses death to mount some form of heresy on this large a scale.”

“Where did Annemarie go?” asked Merle.

“I told you, I didn’t mean to get her. She probably just regained consciousness. She’ll be trying to revive your bodies. I need a decision.”

Magnus put a meaty hand to his white beard. “Can we ask you a favor?”

“Look, I can’t restore Julia to life. I can’t even take you to see her because that isn’t supposed to be how death works and it won’t ease your heart to see her. Trust me,” the Raven Queen said.

“I want to see my wife.”

“You’ll live to be an old man and die in his sleep surrounded by those you love,” the Raven Queen’s eyes were glowing purple now and she seemed to look through them, “as you slowly drift off holding her wedding ring you wake up near a cabin where you see your dogs and when the door opens there she is…you’ll see her again someday. As long as you help me, that is.”

Taako steps in. “How about this: you give this fool his arm back,” he points to Merle, “bump me from a seven point five, back up to a ten,” he says pointing to his face, “and then you tell us where to find Governor Kalen.” Then Taako added: “We want to handle that last one first.”

“Who…” Magnus starts, but is abruptly cut off by Merle and Taako.

“Don’t worry about it,” they say in unison.

The Raven Queen reclines back in mid-air, resting her back against the blackness. “Yes, those things I can do.”

“An-and it’s not going to be like a haunted arm from a serial killer or something, is it?” asked Merle.

“You’ll grow a brand new fucking arm, not a baby arm or some haunted arm because I’m not a hack.”

Magnus looks between Taako and Merle suspiciously and then looks back at the Raven Queen. “Can you deliver a message for me and maybe a gift?”

“A message, it depends. I’m not your own person courier.”

“Can you tell her I’m always thinking of her,” Magnus said.

The Raven shook her head and stood back to her full height. “She already knows that and you know the dead spend a lot of time thinking about the living.”

“Can you deliver a message to Jenkins and Magic Brian that we’ve got a nine AM tee-time,” Taako said. “I don’t want to be standing around waiting again…”

“What? No and you realize Magic Brian isn’t a description of a person that’s going to help me find him right? Like how many Brians that also know magic do you think I have in the Astral Plane?” she asked.

“Five? He should be pretty easy to find since I sent him there. How many magic people named Brian do you think I’ve killed?” Taako shot back with a smile.

The Raven Queen’s eyes glowed brilliant purple again. “You’ve been killed nineteen times, if you want to make your twentieth and final death come a little early, keep talking!”

“Hey, excuse me Miss Queen, do you deliver other things? Like can I send my cousin, Gundren, a cookie basket—or wait a fruit bouquet? Doctor says he has to watch his blood pressure.” Merle scratched as his beard as he thought his way through the question.

The Raven Queen turned to walk away. “You have your orders,” she said, her voice booming. “I don’t know how Pan and Istus put up with this…” she muttered under her breath as she walked away.

* * *

 

A dark skinned human with a bandoleer of daggers secured to his chest knelt over Magnus. His dreadlocks were pulled back into a tight ponytail that was slung over the shoulder of the silvery Elven-make chainmail he wore. “This one’s coming to,” he said to someone outside of Magnus’s eye line.

Annemarie rushed over and shoved her way in next to the mysterious man as Magnus blinked, still groggy. “Thank the Sun Father! I burned through every spell I had healing you three and it wasn’t enough, I thought…” She rubbed the back of her hand across her cheeks streaking through the lines of tears.

Merle’s voice was low and gruff. “How long were we out for?”

“I woke up two hours ago on the ground. Daunte must have heard me screaming because he came to help after that,” Annemarie said.

Daunte nodded as Magnus sat up. “I was traveling along the shore out that way when I heard crying and cursing. I just came to investigate…”

“There wasn’t that much crying…and I wasn’t really cursing. Those things were said in panic,” Annemarie said.

“Ma’am, I’ve been in pirate ports where that kind of talk would have turned heads…” Daunte said.

Magnus, Merle, and Taako were up now standing near the dead fire at the center of their camp. Annemarie had jammed her Morningstar into the ground and cast light atop it and that seemed to be the only source of light for miles. She stayed seated on the ground as they looked at her, her arms crossed and her face pinched tight in anger. Then the realization of what had happened washed over her.

“That was who I think it was back there, right?” Annemaire asked. The three of them nodded.

Daunte glanced at all of them in turn. “That was who back where? What did she want?”

Merle stared up at him, eyes glowing with the magical light illuminating the scene around them. “We’re on a secret mission from god.”

Taako and Magnus slap their faces, but Magnus is the first to speak up. “How secret can it be if you told Mysterious Stranger number one about it minutes after meeting him?”

“We’re boned. The Raven Queen is going to kill us…” Taako says.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sales dispute between a Deals Warlock and a young woman takes an unexpected turn.

Grabnar was big the way that legends made other men seem. He towered over most humans and other folk to the point that it seemed he might have been at least part Goliath. But he was too handsome faced for that with a square jaw and dimpled chin. His clothes were little more than furs even in the cold airs of village of Tolos.

He couldn’t read, but he could take instructions and that was what he did as he helped people with smaller daily tasks in exchange for food and some warm hay in the nearby stables to sleep in. Where he’d been born there wasn’t a proper indoors the way that they had down south. Up at the crown of the world you lived in the elements and slept on the ground. He’d become too accustomed to that way of life to let it go now.

There wasn’t any plan to what he did. Travel the world, see what he could see, and sometimes help out when he could. He enjoyed a good fight and he found that often if you just did the other parts a good fight came looking for you and it was unavoidable. You’d know it when you saw it.

He’d been in town almost a week, usually that was enough time to get the feel of a place. You wanted the locals to trust and take a liking to you, but not to take you for granted or resent you. Grabnar choose the places that he hung out with carefully enough, stayed out of the way of common people as much as he could, and always wore a smile.

The morning sun was barely cutting through the tree line as he started his morning routine. He washed under the pumped water near the stables, first rubbing himself down with clean water, then covering that water with sand and dirt to scrub, and then rinsing off. He ran water through his thick, dark mane smoothing it down against his neck. When that was done he took a small sack filled with thick, white paste and rubbed it between his hands. Once he was satisfied that his hands had warmed it, he started by rubbing it on his legs up as far as was decent. Then on his chest and stomach. Then his arms, neck, shoulders and face. His salve was a necessity—that’s where, Grabnar believed, he derived his strength.

Grabnar was trying to reach his shoulder blades when a voice cut through to him. “Hey, Lurch.” He turned to see a young blonde woman with the tips of her ears pointed just enough to know she was descended from the forest folk—what did they call themselves? Elves. Though he guessed this one had human in her. Her hips and her whole frame was wider than any Elf he’d ever seen. “You’re the one doing the odd jobs around here?”

“Yes, I’m…” He froze and a smile spread across his face. “…Grabnaaaar, the Barbarian Hero!” he sang in a booming baritone voice before doing a backflip that seemed impossibly agile for a man his size. His landing put small divots in the ground.

The woman’s head was pulled slightly to one side in disgust. “Well, it’s officially too early to see someone’s junk as he flips through the air, but there you have it…” The woman sighs and shakes her head. “My name is Lissette and I’ve got a bit of an embarrassing situation. If you could help me out I’ll buy you some mud to roll around in or a nice whore. Whichever you want to roll around in…”

“Food, strong drink, and a place to sleep is enough for me,” he replied. “What’s the problem?”

“Well, you’re huge and built like a brick shithouse, this guy gipped me on a trade. This item literally makes you retarded or something so that the person offering it can take your most valuable item,” she said holding up a small stone with an etching on one side.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to use that word anymore…”

“You know what I mean, anyway this guy took something from me.”

Grabnar examines the item from a far, almost sure that he can smell a hint of some exotic spice. “What’s it called?”

“The Slicer of T'pire Wire Isles? I think that’s how he said it. I don’t know, he’s got a goddamn cat’s head and he’s screaming all the time…are you going to help me or not?”

“Grabnar can’t resist the call to adventure. Especially when there’s a damsel in distress!” he pats her on top of with a palm so big it almost covers the top of her entire skull and proceeds to walk past her.

“Why are your palms all greasy? Are you rubbing bacon fat on yourself?” Lissette asks as she chases after him.

 

* * *

 

A boxy, retrofitted battlewagon with various trinkets and weapons dangling all around it rolls down the cobblestone street that runs the length of Tolos. The huge vehicle still sports the dents in the armor, though now it’s painted orange and the words ‘FANTASY FOOD TRUCK’ painted on the side in blue.

The human-sized head of orange and black tabby cat is sticking out the window of the cockpit surveying the pedestrians on the side of the road and when it serves him, yelling to them. “Little boy! Little boy? Would you like to peruse my wares?”

“Maybe it’s not a good idea to invite kids into your wagon covered in weapons, you freak!” a man yelled from the side walk.

“Freak? No, it is I, Garfield the Deals Warlock!” Garfield waves his wand in a flourish in the man’s direction. “With one spell I’ve banished all sinister thoughts from your mind about pedophiles and strangers in battlewagons. Get your mind out of the gutter!”

A woman threw open the shutters of a window. “Your ridiculous hollerin’ woke my baby!”

“Then maybe I could interest you in some Sandman Dream Powder—this stuff isn’t even technically approved for sale here! It’s made in Shou Lung by blind monks!” Garfield held up a small satchel of white sand like material.

Lissette and Grabnar stopped at the corner and she pointed to the wagon rolling slowly down the street. “I’m sure you can tell which guy I’m talking about…” she said. They strike out to go after the vehicle, Grabnar running to catch hold of the side of it.

“I might be interested in some of what you’ve got here. Is that a jar of bees you’re selling?” Grabnar said.

“My giant friend here has a keen eye. Why yes, those are bees,” Garfield said as the battlewagon slid to a stop.

Grabnar placed his hand on his chin as if he is deep in thought for a moment and then folds his arms over his chest. “I’d take it, but I don’t really have any money—no pockets. You’ll have to speak to my associate here for payment,” he said as he points over his shoulder toward Lissette.

 “Oh, you again? All sales are final, sorry.”

Lissette slams her fist against the side of the battlewagon. “Sale my ass, you tricked me with this weird rock.”

“A trade is a trade, you’re welcome to purchase your bow back at a reasonable price though,” Garfield said.

“A bow? Grabnar can make you a bow…” Grabnar said.

Lissette scoffs. “Not like this.” She glared at the Deals Warlock, her blue eyes narrowing. “Give me my bow,” she said through clenched teeth.

Grabnar has traversed the land from coast to coast and walked in places where they said men didn’t walk. He’d survived an avalanche where it felt like the snow and rock itself was out to bury him—end his existence. And he’d stood against a rush of stampeding animals, bravely keeping them at bay from companions. This low rumble felt like the tremor that proceeded both of those things.

He knelt and put his palm flat on the cobblestone. Bits of sand and rock danced with the pounding of whatever was coming. When the ground began to pulse like a heartbeat of something massive and living the warlock and Lissette seemed to feel it too.

“Hmm, what is that?” Garfield opened the door to the battlewagon and stepped out, pulling the cone shaped hat back out of his eyes.

Grabnar rose back to his towering height and removed the two axes that he wore, axes big enough that they should have taken two hands for a regular man to hold. In the distance there was dust and the rumble was full blown now. Towns people screamed and ran and there were shrieks of terror further out. Horrible cracking noises and fierce snarls were coming from somewhere too close.

Dust filled the street in one direction, but they couldn’t see what was coming. And then the door to a tavern off to their side exploded out as a man was tackled to the ground by a nearly nude man with pale, ragged skin. The man on bottom was held down as the other one bit into his neck ripping chunks of flesh free and throwing his head back to swallow.

There was no time to pay attention to the screams or the panic around them as more of the gaunt creatures burst through the door of the tavern. Zombies. Grabnar kicked the first one that nearly reached them back and wildly hacked at them with axes, burying them under the sheer weight of his swings. He let out a bellowing cry: “Graaabnaaaaar, the Barbarian Heeero!” and continued his assault.

“My bow, give me my bow!” Lissette continued. A zombie thundered past Grabnar, slamming itself into the side of the battlewagon and then making for Lissette, she turned, drew a short sword from the side of her belt and jabbed it in the chest. She then used her foot to kick it free of the blade. “It’d help if I had my bow.”

Garfield blasted a wide ray of arcane energy into a pack of the undead charging up the street. “It’s by the door along with some arrows, just grab it!”

Lissette lunged through the open door of the battlewagon to grab the bow and quiver. Her bow was metal and ornate with gears to increase the draw strength and some arrows already fixed to the side for safe keeping. A small cross-haired scope was lined up just above where the arrows sat. More arrows were stockpiled in a bucket just inside the wagon, so she took that too. She dropped the bucket to the ground and drew an arrow. She muttered the Elven word for fire and a red aura took shape around her bow.

She loosed two arrows in rapid succession at a pair of zombies that were raking at a woman’s dress as she crawled away. When the arrows hit the creatures were engulfed in flames. She pumped arrows into anything that came through the door and when she couldn’t Grabnar picked up her slack. One of the zombies grabbed onto Grabnar, but the salve he had rubbed himself with earlier made getting a grip tricky and he easily shrugged it off.

Garfield slung spells into packs of the undead, blowing them up until chunks rained down in the streets. Even with all their work, the three of them weren’t making a dent in this undead horde. And through the dust kicked up during the fight they finally spotted the source of most of the noise: a large tusked creatures, bigger than an elephants. The one in the lead was missing a huge flap of skin on its face and there was a skeletal rider.

“Get on the wagon!” Garfield yelled. “Get on the wagon!”

A battlewagon had footholds and compartments that were meant to be used for defenders. They were still here. Lissette climbed into a small fenced in cylindrical spot at the back with the bucket of arrows by her side and Grabnar just latched on to the side.

When Garfield saw that they were safe he punched it full throttle through the streets of the city. Grabnar and Lissette kept any undead that got too close to the vehicle off and Garfield drove. He drove in a manner that would put the racers of Goldcliff to shame. He ran over anyone that wasn’t living and decided to get in front of them, he skidded through the small town making his way for what had to be safety.

Grabnar snatched the bottle of bees off its hook and flung it back into a crowd of zombies that glared up at them as they passed. It seemed to have no effect.

They were turning west and one of the stampeding beasts was right along side them, towering twice as high as the battlewagon. Garfield glanced over at it, before steering slightly away from it. “Nyahh, do you see that huge sack on the side of the card there, big guy? Those are grenades. When I say so throw the whole damn bag at that thing and hang on!”

“Now!” Garfield veered for the creature sharply and then away. Grabnar threw the bag of grenades right at the apex of the turn and Garfield fired a massive fireball from the tip of a disposable wand into the creature’s side. The explosion popped the battlewagon up onto two wheels for a split second, but they seemed to be in the clear.

They were clear of the borders of Tolos, but the city was burning in the distance. People were dragged down by the army of undead. Grabnar hooked his arm around through a handhold near the roof of the battlewagon and rested his head on his arm glancing back into the city as the shouts of victims died under the arcane hum of the battlewagon’s engine. His dark hair blew back over his face, but he didn’t care enough to push it away. “What was that?” he asked.

“An army of the undead…” Lissette said.

Garfield checked the mirror for any pursuers and then looked back at the pair of them.

“Is this like the last time?” Grabnar asked. “The unseen ones and their invasion?”

“I was only two when that happened…I have memories of the seven travelers though. It’s just always been there,” Lissette said. With a whisper she deactivated the enchantment on her bow and checked the tightness of the riggings.

“This is something different,” Garfield’s voice was lower than normal now. “This is something else.” He had seen what happened back then, he’d been involved in some of it, albeit unknowingly. This was something different, but still dangerous. “We should stick together for now.”


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As we learn more about who Annemarie and Daunte are things come to a head for our boys as Magnus questions everything that he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a few days since I did one of these because this one is much longer than the previous entries and it deals with some heavier stuff in parts.

Night is uneasy with the threat of the Raven Queen’s words looming over their sleep. Something threatens her and is using the undead. It had been a long time since Magnus had to think about the undead. Wonderland. A year cycle where they lived on a world with intelligent undead that lived side by side with humans. These were two very different interactions left a lot of room in the middle for “what-ifs”.

Magnus polished his axe as Annemarie and Merle went over their morning prayers. It had been a common occurrence to see Merle in his commune with nature over the years they’d known each other. He’d kneel among the trees and fallen leaves and drink nature in. The words that he spoke with Pan were as familiar to Magnus now as they must have been to Merle. The veneration of Pan was a short prayer and Merle spoke it in his native Dwarven, but the sounds and inflections soothed Magnus in a way.

Annemarie was a different sort, Pelor was a more prominent and her rituals had less to do with the environment around her and more to do with Pelor. She would go through a silent prayer or reflection and then say. “For this we pray to you, Lord of Light and Mornings,” her tone was unwavering and she faced the direction of the rising sun throughout the process.

With the weight of the head of the axe resting in his palm, Magnus tested the edge for dents and sharpness. This axe had been with him too long and it seemed it had a little more work to do. Back with the Raven Queen Taako and Merle has mentioned something that they seemed to want to keep secret or couldn’t tell him. He remembered the moment, but not the name or any circumstances surrounding what that name could mean. He hadn’t had time to ask them as they had been busy since then with sleep or meditation or cooking or prayer…

Daunte, the man who had happened upon them the previous day had stuck around. He sauntered up to Magnus. Magnus’s head was down, the white spiked hair atop his head still wet with lake water from his morning wash. “You’re him, ain’t you?”

“I’m…not sure what you’re talking about,” Magnus blew across the axe edge just as he finished his sentence.

“Magnus Burnside—big damn hero! I can’t believe that I’d just run into you out here,” Daunte said. 

“Well, I gotta be somewhere,” Magnus said.

“Right, right. I mean, you were just an inspiration for me. My moms and pops saw you once in person and there was a statue of you in our town. You dressed different and yeah you were younger, but you’re a legend.”

“Your town, Refuge?” asked Magnus.

“Yeah, you set us free from…well free from never moving forward.”

“It was me and other like me who damned your town to be frozen too,” Magnus said.

Daunte sighed. “That’s one way to look at it. The other is that the Temporal Chalice saved us from a big fucking Purple Worm. And then you three used it to save us from the Ruination From the Heavens. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here. Neither would she, for sure,” he says as he points to Annemarie who was lifting her morningstar up above her head and muttering a prayer. “You’re why I decided to see the world and lend a hand—Hell that’s why I stuck around, it seems like you could use an extra sword.”

Magnus cracked a smile and glanced over at Annemarie. “That’s why you stuck around?”

Daunte furrowed his brow in confusion. “Huh?”

“Nothing, I just have a lot on my mind,” said Magnus.

“Well, I know what takes my mind off of everything when I get like that.” Daunte pulled a sword from his hip and touched the flat of the blade to his forehead in a kind of salute. “Come on, let me live out a life-long fantasy of mine. Show me what you’ve got, Old Man.”

“That’s how it is?” Magnus asked.

“I don’t know. Get up. Prove me wrong.”

Magnus got to his feet and the two went at each other with slow swings with the bite pulled out of them, but axe and sword clang together with a resounding ring and as they continued to spar, Magnus laughed. One of the blows caught Magnus off guard and he stumbled back and went down on one knee. Daunte brought the sword up to point it down at Magnus’s face. “Yield?” he asked. “I’ve got you.”

In a flash Magnus slaps the sword down with the flat of his axe, knocking it free of Daunte’s grip. As the sword drops, Magnus rushes in and lifts Daunte onto his back. He can’t hold the weight for long, but he doesn’t need to. He flips the younger man onto the ground near the axe and sword.

Daunte lays with his dreads spread out around his head like a lion’s mane. “You had me, huh?” Magnus asked as he stooped down to offer a hand to him.

“Guess that’s the reason they call you a legend?” Daunte says.

Annemarie stepped in and took Daunte by the arm. “There’s nothing sore? No ringing in the ears, right?”

“My pride. My pride is a little sore,” Daunte said.

“Nah, you did good kid.” Magnus slapped a huge hand down on his shoulder.

“You could have hurt each other. These aren’t practice weapons! And I just saw you get hit by lighting twelve hours ago!” she slaps the shoulder pad of Magnus’s armor.

Taako had finished packing up the remains of breakfast and had wandered off saying that he’d be right back. He came through the underbrush and surveyed the camp. “Um, there’s something that I think we need to all see when Merle is done…”

 

* * *

 

 

The clearing surrounded some ancient stone monument, probably Druidic, and the grass was ankle high here and blew back and forth in thin strands. Strewn throughout the grass along with the stones of the monument were bodies. There were too many to count and only a few days old.

Magnus and Daunte were the first into the field. “No traps,” Daunte said. “Just…the dead.”

The others followed them out into the tall grass, Annemarie clutched a handkerchief wet with canteen water to her face. She shivered as they stepped onto the grounds around the monuments. “Merle?” she said with a worried look in her large blue eyes.

“I get ya’ kiddo. I feel it too,” Merle said keeping his voice low.

“Feel what?” asked Magnus.

“The heebie-jeebies,” Merle said.

Annemarie moved the cloth down some and the smell of sunbaked death flooded over her. “Desecration. Someone used this sacrifice to turn a holy site decidedly unholy.”

“Necromancy. Fun times,” Taako said.

“It’s worse than that for me. I can smell the Infernal venting up through this place. We have to do something,” she said shaking her head.

Merle sighs. “It’d take us weeks to cleanse this place alone. You can damn near taste the evil.”

“Oh, look over there,” Taako said pointing at a lone armored man dragging a sword through the grass toward him. He was taking slow, hobbling steps and didn’t say a word. “You’re all alone. Drop the weapon.” The figure kept coming. “If you want to roll the dice, thug. I’m all game.”

The figure glared up and under his helm they could see two glowing yellow eye sockets and a skull with most of the meat torn away from. Without a second thought Taako loosed an arcing bolt of electricity from the tip of his wand and blew a chunk out of the creature’s side. It took a few more labored steps and toppled into the grass.

“We need to leave,” Annemarie’s voice wavered.

“We’ve got movement on all sides now,” Daunte said.

The movement he spoke of was the former dead. They were pushing themselves up to their feet with mournful howls and rasping gasps. Their skin was mostly shredded down to the point that it is sliding away from the bone. A few of them reached out to grab at the person nearest to them. Magnus was the first to catch one stumbling too close. He swung his in downward sweep and caught the would-be-attack in the ankles with Railsplitter. The thing’s legs clattered across the grass and it flopped onto its side. Magnus finished it off with a blow to the neck, severing its head.

There were too many of them for Taako to start burning spells on, so he sends streams of raw arcane energy ripping through the creatures. He tears into the nearest group and then turns his hand on the ones at his back. Magnus and Daunte step in defending the sides of the group from the stragglers.

Merle summons a huge mace made of spiritual energy that lays into the undead knocking them back and burning them with brilliant holy energy. Annemarie backs into the center of the group. “Let them close in,” she said before she beings to mutter a prayer.

“What?” Magnus yelled.

She paused. “Let them come,” she said.

All around her the sounds of battle intensify. Some of the dead are felled by sword or axe while others fall to spells. Magnus, Merle, Taako, and Daunte moved away from her, being sure to keep anything from getting too close. Annemarie raised her Morningstar and it began to glow subtly becoming brighter as she prayed.

“Shine forth thy light  
“Drive back the darkness  
  
“Bring life where there was death  
“Bring growth where all was barren  
“Bring peace where there was strife  
“Bring warmth where clawed the fingers of ice  
“Bring mercy where there was none  
“Bring knowledge where there was ignorance  
“Bring comfort where there was fear  
  
“Let the sun rise!  
“Let the shadows flee!”

 On the word flee a cascade of light flooded down from the heavens and surrounded the group, slamming into the ground and spreading out in a white-yellow wave that disintegrated the nearest wave of attackers and ripped through the rest of the undead knocking them to the ground. The bodies that were left lay smoking.

Magnus stepped out to check on the upper half of one undead that lay with arms thrown up as if in panic. Its eyes were burned out of its head. He turned back to the group. “Damn, don’t tell me Merle taught you that too.”

“I taught her everything, dammit!” Merle yelled.

Annemarie had sunken to her knees and was huffing in air, her face red from stress. “The Lord of Light is good,” she managed. “I just—I need to rest.”

Taako was rubbing his eyes blinking and looking around. “A little warning next time would be nice. These eyes have to last me a few more centuries.” He walked up to her, still seeing spots and glanced down in her direction. “She’s sleep.”

“Well, can we really afford to stop for the day? We’ve got to find this Kalen fellow so we can get on with it,” Merle said.

Magnus heard that name again. He knew it from somewhere, though he couldn’t even recall the exact name now…”

Taako sighs. “I know. I think I have an idea.”

 

* * *

 

_Annemarie._

The dirt and cobblestone streets of Field Ward were beginning to puddle with the water that ran down from the tops of buildings. The rainy season in Waterdeep was notorious, but Field Ward never died down. All manner of demi-humans sold their wares and doing business on the streets—this was the part of town where those with impure blood made their home. The deeper one went into the city walls the more likely one was to get caught.

And being outside the main wall didn’t keep citizens from visiting Annemarie.

She was back in front of that alleyway with the row of hovels, one of which she lived in. The others were busy trying to keep themselves dry, but dry didn’t earn and copper. Dry didn’t feed. And that was the most important thing about all of this. Annemarie could have worked waiting tables or mopping a floor somewhere, but for a half-Fiend like her—more importantly, for a half-Succubus—this business gave her easy access to the one ritual that kept a Succubus in good health. Sexual intercourse. Without the ritual of sex she was basically operating at half energy.

Annemarie had given up on any other kind of way to get sex. She’d even given up on normal relationships. Her father and his family thought she was a monster. To most of society she was suspect.

_Annemarie._

Was there someone calling her?

Cold wind swept past her carrying darts of rain with it. She remembered this place. She remembered rain like this, but it all felt wrong. The sky seemed to be reddening and when she looked at the rain, really looked at it, it was red too.

Everything smelled metallic. It was raining blood. Had it always been raining blood.

_Annemarie, you don’t belong with them. You belong here…_

The voice was clearer now, a gruff voice that seemed to echo from somewhere distant while being so immediate and that it drowned out all other noise. “Who’s there?”

_Someone long forgotten. Someone who could use your help._

“Let me out of here. Is this some kind of dream?” Annemarie asked confused.

_I saw what you did to my soldiers. You’re so weak now. You’re so tired. I could reconnect you with true power. All you have to do is say the word._

Annemarie covered her ears and begin to pray. “The Lord of Light guides me through darkness. He walks by me through danger. He shepherds me to his Golden City where he sits on the throne of the sun…” she repeats this prayer again. And again.

_That fool, Pelor, can’t reach you here. You entered my Infernal grounds. You taunt me by calling the power of my enemy into my foothold in the Material world._

She could still hear the voice just as clearly and she was still praying.

_Are you listening?_

Whips of light arced through midair slicing into her. They ripped at her skin, burning her. They continued to assault her until she fell to her knees in the streets running with bloody rain. She managed to keep praying. When she reached up to her neck she found her holy symbol and clutched it. She paused. “I gave this life up. I’m not meant for that and I will not be intimidated by some voice in my head!”

The voice was gone. Waterdeep and the rains were gone and Annemarie was left alone slumped over and wet in the darkness.

 

* * *

 

“One of us should really invest in a good, solid mount,” Merle said.

Taako sighed. “Everything you invest in, you lose or leave behind.”

Merle glanced over at the pale, blue form of a quasi-real spectral steed that traveled in their midst. Annemarie was straddling the horse, her hands wrapped around its neck tightly and tied together at the wrists. Her face rested in the mullet mane that grew wildly down the back of its head. She was secured up there as best they could do with ropes and all, but Magnus and Daunte walked on either side making sure she stayed put.

The steed, Garyl walked at a leisurely pace. “You ain’t gotta tug on her like that,” he said with a sharp whinny punctuating his sentence. “When you pull on her, you’re pulling on me. Her arms are tied around my neck!”

“Well, I’m sorry, your talking is creeping me out…” whispered Daunte.

“I’ll be sure to keep a tight lid on it then, wouldn’t want anyone upset at me being here,” Garyl said.

“Cut it out you two.” Merle paused and glanced back. “She doing okay?” Merle asked.

“Yeah,” Magnus said, though he was speaking kind of on auto-pilot, as if someone had input a series of commands that were to be executed if a certain situation arose. Smile at a joke. Nod to acknowledge benign comment. Answer in the affirmative.

He was pouring through his memory for what they had said earlier. They were going to see someone—a name he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t ask them directly, they would know something was wrong. He was being denied something, but this was different than the Fishers’s ichor. He could hear the name as clearly as day, but before he could think on it or really internalize it, the thoughts had slipped away.

There had to be some way to make someone say it. Annemarie and Daunte were the easiest targets. They were the least likely to know what was going on, especially Daunte. Annemarie wasn’t going to be any good to anyone for at least the rest of the day…

He needed to know soon. Sooner than tomorrow or when they reached their destination. An opening would present itself, but to bring it up in the middle of silence like this would be odd. Maybe Merle and Taako would move further up in the group and there’d be a chance to say something then. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them. They’d been together more than one hundred years and mostly relied on the wits of the person next to them. They had weathered a storm that rocked universes together.

But they weren’t above betrayal when they thought they were doing the right thing. They weren’t above hiding secrets. Magnus hid the statue of himself in Refuge. Taako stole countless times behind their back, thinking they didn’t know. Merle hid a family. Lucretia…well Lucretia had perpetrated a massive coup against the lot of them. She had stolen memories of loved ones and friends in a bid to protect them from themselves and to protect the world from their mistake…

Magnus wouldn’t let anyone make a sacrifice like that on his account again. They stopped at a stream and Merle and Taako were wetting their feet in the cool waters. Daunte took his canteen and drizzled water slowly into Annemarie’s hair, smoothing it down as he went. “Somehow it still feels hot in the sun,” Daunte said as Magnus neared him.

“At least the Northern Sword Coast is predictable. It varies too much out here,” Magnus said. Daunte was a Refuge man. If anyone trusted Magnus it was him. “Are you still worried about her temperature.”

Daunte shrugged. “Maybe her type run hot?” he said. “She was definitely having a nasty dream back there. She muttered something in her sleep.”

“We’ve all got pasts that haunt us. I’m sure she’s no different,” Magnus stroked her forehead checking her temperature. This was his chance. “Do you know much about the man we’re headed for?”

He glared at Magnus. “Speaking of the past? Yeah. He’s the one who killed your wife—Governor Kalan. I've heard the story around...you were looking for him at one point and just stopped. You stopped before I was even born from what I hear. I kind of...listened to any stories about you that were out there. What's with the questions?”

“He killed…Julia?” Magnus said the words and as soon as he did they didn’t make sense. Julia had died, but he couldn’t think of how. He couldn’t see the face of the man who did it. “He…Kalan…” Magnus said it, but he was losing the name already. He kept repeating it. “Kalan. Kalan. Kalan…”

“Man, are you okay?” asked Daunte stepping away from Annemarie.

“I could have warned you that you were fucking up. Now you done did it,” Garyl said.

“Shut up,” Daunte chided the spectral creature.

Magnus stormed down toward the creek. “Hey,” he said between whispers of Kalan’s name. “Tell me the truth about this Kalan guy now!”

Taako and Merle glanced back. “What are you even talking about, buddy?” asked Merle.

“What are you two hiding? Don’t play stupid with me.” Magnus had gone too long without saying it. He already forgot. “It has something to do with Julia. Why aren’t you telling me.”

“You have to trust us…” Taako started as he rose to his feet standing at the water’s edge. Small ripples of water crashed against his ankles as he stared Magnus down.

“I’m done trusting you because you won’t tell me what the fuck is going on. What did you two do?”

Merle held his hand up. “We wanted to tell you, but we can’t. We physically can’t.”

“Bullshit,” Magnus snarled. He took one lumbering step forward and Daunte turned to stop him, but he froze in place and tumbled back onto his butt sitting there frozen. “What…what is this?”

“It’s for your own good,” Merle said as he walked toward Magnus with his small bare feet trampling through the grass and dirt. “Hold person won’t hurt you, but if you keep struggling you could fall over or even hurt yourself.” Merle retrieved the Extreme Teen Bible from his pack.

He turned to an earmarked passage and red quietly. “I don’t understand,” Magnus said.

Merle smiled. “You’ve been mad before. You’ve gotten so mad at us that we’ve gone a year without talking. You’ve missed birthdays and get-togethers. We keep trying to tell you and it just doesn’t work. It’s whatever those Liches did to you. We can’t make it right, we’ve tried. But we’re going to make good on our promise.”

“What promise?” Magnus asked. “Who did you make a deal with?”

And as he’s done countless times before, Merle throws up his hand. “I cast ZONE OF TRUTH!” A ripple of light encases the two of them and stops just short of Daunte, Garyl, and Annemarie.

Taako steps into the field that the spell’s hold has too. “When we were looking for the Animus Bell in Wonderland you lost something in a spin of that wheel…”

“That damned wheel took away your memories of what had happened to Julia. Kalan is the man who killed her. He bombed Raven’s Roost,” Merle said.

“Whatever magic those fabulous bastards in Wonderland did it makes it so that you can’t remember even when we tell you. Even when we make you read it over and over,” Taako explained.

“No, I’d never forget who did this to her. I’d never forget his face,” Magnus yelled torqueing his shoulders against the spell and only managing to tumble onto his side. “You…you have to be lying.”

“You know we’re not,” Taako said.

“You made us promise that we would find Kalan and kill him. No questions asked. And that we’d tell him why. The Raven Queen granted us an opportunity…” Merle said.

“She gave us his location,” Taako added.

Magnus rolled over, his face touching blades of grass and though he couldn’t move much he could fee his cheek hit the dirt. He could feel the tears streaming out of his eyes. “I wouldn’t forget this. I wouldn’t…make that bet.” It was hard to hold onto what they were telling him.

“You did it to save your friends. You did it to stop the Hunger. You did it because…it’s what Julia would have expected of you. You did it without thinking because Magnus rushes in,” Merle said.

Magnus fell still on the ground and Daunte watched from his spot near Garyl. He glanced to the side and even the steed was choked up. He felt his eyes swelling with tears too, though he kept them at bay and cleared the emotion from his voice. “It’ll be dark soon and we’re down two members, why don’t we camp here for the night?”

Merle drops Zone of Truth. “Yeah, I’d say this day’s been rough enough on all of us,” he walked past Magnus and touched his shoulder. “The job’s almost done,” Merle said.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More flashes of what happened to Garfield and friends after Tolos. And our heroes spend the night by the river and reflect.

The forest was rife with wights, zombies, and all other manner of undead. Lissette could the rotting flesh on the night air as the Battlewagon trudged on through the night. There was some discussion about sleeping in the wagon and stopping, but Garfield didn’t need sleep the same way others did. Plus there was some fear that the creatures could swarm them in the night and they’d be stuck.

Grabnar was inside of the cabin of the wagon now, resting. Lissette watched for any forms of attack. How were there so many of them? Hell, why were there so many?

That wasn’t a realistic assessment. They seemed to be originating from somewhere. They hadn’t seen one in hours and they had thinned as they moved away from Tolos. But this had been a two-day drive with them taking turns resting. Grabnar couldn’t be trusted to drive, though, and she was at her wit’s end. Her blonde hair was a frazzled mess with leaves caught in it, her clothes streaked with dirt and sweat.

“You can probably pack it in. I think we’re through them,” Garfield shouted from his spot in the front.

Lissette climbed over the top of the battlewagon and pulled open the heavy metal hatch. She dropped stealthily down into the interior so as not to wake Grabnar. “Where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know. I know someone we might need to get in contact with. There’s a town up ahead a few hours. We should make it there by dawn and we can make our move from there.” He said.

“I don’t know what you’re planning, but I know I need a shower. There’s things I need to shave and I am probably going to find a nice, dark haired noble boy to take somewhere quiet,” Lissette said.

“Ugh, tee-em-eye,” Garfield said.

“Nah, I could have gone into it more. Like I could have mentioned that I’m so desperate for anything right now I thought about you two. Only I don’t even know what the fuck you are and I’m afraid to shake Grabnar’s hand for fear he’d pull my arm off, there’s no way I’m going near his…” she made a circle over her genitals with her hand “…situation.”

Lissette laid back on a pile of stuffed animals that Garfield had on a pile in the back of the battlewagon. “What’s with this thing, anyway?” she asked. “It says food truck on the outside, there’s stuffed animals in here…”

“I was trying out different marketing ideas!”

“It seems strange and doesn’t gel well with the whole ‘adventurer store’ motif you’ve got going on here,” Lissette said.

“Well, no one asked you, Don Draper!” Garfield yelled.

“I don’t know who that is…” There was a snap outside. “Wait, do you hear that?”

Garfield’s ears perked up and he straightened his back. “It’s probably just the arcane engine?”

Something hit the side of the battlewagon with a huge thunk. “What was that?” asked Lissette as she pulled her bow up against her body. There was a thunderous explosion and the whole world pitched up into the air and then rolled over onto its side. The stuffed animals rained down on top of Lissette.

Grabnar sprung up from the side of the cabin and grabbed for his axe. Lissette forced her way to her feet with her bow in hand and glanced to the front end of the battlewagon. Garfield was crawling his way to the back of the vehicle.

“We need to get the door open,” Grabnar said listening through the door. “But someone is out there.”

“You think?” Lissette said sarcastically. “What do these boots do?” she pointed to a pair of winged boots laying near her feet.

Garfield thought for a second. “Double run speed…”

“Fuck it,” she slips out of her boots and slips into the others. Outside there are audible noises like people shuffling around and shouts. “We might as well grab what we can out of here. This battlewagon isn’t going anywhere.”

“The door is stuck too,” Grabnar said.

She snatched some pendants down and a belt. A gauntlet hung on the wall. “Does this glove make you stronger or something?” Lissette asked.

“I think…”

She slipped her hand inside and said. “You’re going to need to move,” Lissette said to Grabnar. He stepped back and she charged the door and swung with the gauntlet toward the stuck door. As she brought her fist and the gauntlet forward a spectral fist several sizes bigger than her own appeared around her fist and slammed into the door before she even reached it.

The door was blasted off into the forest and ripped away from the battlewagon. Grabnar was the first one out of the vehicle and he had his axe drawn back and at the ready. Garfield was next and fired a bolt of magic energy high into the air. It hung overhead like a sizzling neon light illuminating the forest and when Lissette stepped out she saw what had attacked.

Warrior women clad in furs and pelts with makeshift weaponry. They were no one type of woman, Humans with dark skin and hair adorned with beads, Orcs that stood at almost the height of the battlewagon, a couple of gnomes with saw tipped spears, a dragonborn with a hastily crafted naginta, two half elf women with skin the color of rust waited on a tree branch with bows poised, and scores of more.

There were no words spoke before Grabnar lunged in to take on one of the women in front with a huge scimitar. His axe collided with her blade ringing throughout the forest. The archers loosed arrows and just as quickly Garfield threw up a wind wall to block them. The other women encircled Grabnar cheering in a language that neither Grabnar or Lissette could understand.

“I think this is where we part ways,” Grabnar said. “You’ve got to contact these people who can help…I’ll be fine here. Grabnar is always fine.” He kicked his opponent in the stomach sending her tumbling back and the warrior women yelled in excitement. A dark-skinned woman with a bow staff stepped in twirling it expertly and a gnome jumped on Grabnar from behind, its wild pink curls flashing from side to side as Grabnar whipped around and flung the small person onto the ground before deflecting a blow from the bow staff.

Lissette started to move in to help and Garfield grabbed her. Grabnar looked back. “Just go on without me!” He let out a boisterous cry and dove in to tackle the woman with the bow to the ground as more cheers erupted from the group watching them. “Graaaaaabnaaaar, the Barbarian Heroooo!” he screamed until it echoed through the forest.

Lissette grunted. “We’ll have to move on foot then?” she asked trying to ignore what they were doing. Garfield nodded. As they headed west she yelled back to Grabnar where he was pinned under the other woman with her thighs around his neck. “If you don’t die, make sure they know: the dead are coming!”

Grabnar wriggled one arm free and threw up a thumbs up.

 

* * *

 

Annemarie awoke in the middle of the night on the bank of a river with her head laid on a stack of thick blankets. A campfire burned nearby and she could see Taako sitting in his meditative position closer to the bank of the river. A hand smoothed her hair down and she glanced back to see Merle standing behind her, his beard adorned with flowers and so much closer than she usually got to see it.

“Have you been,” she yawned, “waiting for me to wake?” her voice was slow and an octave higher than normal.

He nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep that long from overexertion,” he said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever channeled raw celestial energy through my body like that before, either,” she said.

“Well you did super.” Merle stroked a hand through her hair again. “You know I used to stroke Mavis’s hair this way…”

“Mavis, who used to yell at me to unlock my knees when I’m casting because I fainted that time?” Annemarie chuckled. “It’s hard to picture Lady Mavis being…innocent in the naïve way.”

“She wasn’t always a badass, you know. And sometimes she still acts like she’s a kid again,” Merle said. The first crackled nearby and he paused for a moment. “Being a badass doesn’t make her not my kid, either. And what you did back there doesn’t make you not my star student…”

Annemarie smiled. “I did do good, though, right?”

“Yeah.”

For a while she’s silent and then she almost drifts to sleep. She can feel Merle move away and she doesn’t want to really move her neck for fear of drawing attention back to herself, but she can move her eyes until she sees where Magnus is. His back is to her, but she knows him to be awake by his movements. Daunte sleeps on the ground nearby, his face covered with a pillow to drown out snoring.

Annemarie decided that she was too awake to lay out here under the stars and just pretend to be sleep. She crawled to her feet dusting herself off and walking over to Magnus. She stood at his side and glanced down. He was fumbling with something small in his hands, moving it around with delicate touches. She could see it to be a ring. “Would you like some company?”

He glances up toward her startled. “Sure,” he said. It was as many words as he could manage without tears at this point.

She sat down, pulling her knees up against her chest and leaning her head against them to look over at him. “What happened today?”

Magnus was silent for a long time and he just kept turning that ring over and over in his huge tanned hands. He exhaled. “I can’t remember what happened to her. Not really. And when I fall asleep I’ll forget what little I do remember,” he said. “That’s how it works. That’s how it worked in the past Taako and Merle told me.”

He held the ring up and looked through the hole in the middle of it, the hole where the love of his life’s finger used to fit. “It’s like I’ve lost her all over again.”

“You can’t stay awake forever to remember these small details. You remember Julia. You’ve always been able to talk about the important things about her,” Annemarie said.

“Someone took her from me and I can’t even remember that. I can’t hold onto it because that memory didn’t mean enough to me to fight for it?” Magnus said.

Annemarie shook her head. “Why does it matter who killed her or how she died? Revenge is not who a man like you is, Magnus.”

“When you love someone…you want them—the good and the bad. I don’t want to forget a single fight with her or a single flaw. This is my burden to carry just like the good times are mine…”

A thin smile appeared across her face. “That’s not something I’ll ever get to know,” she pointed to the curled horns on the side of her head. “I’m not sure my Infernal blood will let me love or that I should. I’m dangerous to others and who wants to deal with a half demon monster that feeds off sex energy?” A small chuckle escaped her.

Magnus was staring at her now. “No one thinks you’re a monster.” And despite all of the things he was going through he wrapped his hand tight around the ring so as to not drop it and threw his arms around her. She could feel his tears on her robes.

“I’ll remind you of Kalan and what happened everyday, if you want. I’ll make it my duty to tell you after morning prayers,” she whispered into his ear mid-hug.

Magnus let her go. “It’s okay. It’s a choice I made. Maybe at the time part of me just wanted to be rid of all of it and remember her life?”

“That’s my boy,” Annemarie laughed as she stood up, sweeping her robes underneath her. “You need to get some rest, though, okay?”

Magnus nodded. “Annemarie,” he called to her when she was halfway back to the fire. “Julia would have really loved you. I can just tell.”

“I’m sure from where she is, that she can tell too,” Annemarie said.

 

* * *

 

We see a grand village in the forest lit by torchlight. Statues of the women who have shaped the world of this tribe line the entryway into the village and the road leading up to a longhouse. The sidewalks are made of sticks laid in a walkway and polished clean of bark with other sticks set beneath them to raise them up. Gardens dot the sides of the path where sunlight can get to them and a small stream bisects the little settlement.

Near the entry to the village we find the familiar form of the battlewagon, not tipped back onto its wheels with many of the wares picked clean. Inside the great longhouse many of the stuffed animals, trinkets, weapons and other things have been piled high on the floor. Guards look after the haul and are placed at points all around the village.

The fire inside the longhouse is dying down and atop a huge pallet made of animal skins of various types, Grabnar sleeps with the woman from before at his side. The woman who carried the bow staff. Grabnar isn’t a linguist, Hell, he can’t even read. But he knows enough to know that she’s their queen and that they enjoyed the way he fought.

Really enjoyed it.

Grabnar was good at reading people. It was a skill that he had sort of fallen into in all his travels. And he recognized a damn good party when he saw one and these ladies knew what they were doing.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes conduct an investigation and Garfield and Lissette find their ride.

They broke camp before first light and by midmorning they were entering the town of Falcon’s Hollow. A river ran along the southern side of town. Further upstream there were people riding atop logs and guiding them into a dammed-up section next to a mill. The sounds of saws and boisterous laughter filled the air. The smell of burnt air wafted throughout the town.

Almost everything else in the town was made of thick, dark wood stacked or lashed together and lacquered until it shined. The only metal structures were moonlight towers, now turned off, stretching up into the sky. People dotted the streets, going about daily chores and errands. It looked like if anyone had seen anything like an evil tyrant here, they weren’t too worried about it.

Taako, Magnus, and Merle had been drawn to the place because that is what they requested of the Raven Queen—to know where Kalan is, but judging by the things Magnus had told them about before he lost the memories this wasn’t the sort of man who could just come into a town and resist the urge to control people.

“We’ve been led this far, but where do we go from here?” asked Merle.

Taako glanced up at one of the moonlight towers and then surveyed the portion of the town around it. “Positions of power,” Taako said. “There’s bound to be some kind of nobility here where a man like this would be.”

Merle turned back to see that Magnus and Daunte were talking on either side of Annemarie as she walked along looking from side to side at the buildings.

“Then that’s what we need to do, ask around.” Merle sighed. “I’ll go to the local temple alone and see if there’s anything that they know.”

Taako nodded. “We’ll go to any taverns or hangs that we can find, see if there’s anything worth dredging up.”

Merle held up a stone of far speech, “If you find anything, let an old man know?”

“I’m older than you, _old man_ ,” Taako said. He struck off back up the road to reach the other three. “You’re all with me, let’s go get some shots!” he said throwing his arms around Magnus and Annemarie.

Annemarie piped up. “I don’t actually drink…”

“Nonsense. There’s nothing in Pelor’s teaching that says you can’t,” Taako said as Merle disappeared down the street behind them.

The local tavern, in this area of the town at least, was the Axe and Ale. It was already crowded, even at this time of day. Huge men and women, with saw dust stuck in their hair were gathered around the tables and the bar. Magnus and Daunte fit right in with the crowd. But when Annemarie stepped through the door a good portion of the people in the bar turned to stare.

Taako leaned in close to Magnus. “We need to look for the part of town where the high-rollers live,” Taako said. After a night’s sleep, Magnus would be reset to his previous state of not knowing what was going on. He would remember something was hidden from him, but not what it was. Usually there was much more confusion and anger over this, but something seemed to have calmed him.

“I’ll get us a round of drinks—might as well not waste this chance,” Daunte said.

“I don’t drink,” Annemarie called after him.

A table near the wall was filled with burly men with thick bristly bears that were playing a card game that Magnus didn’t recognize. He walked over to them and glanced down watching as they shuffled cards around and moved through complex set of rules that he couldn’t quite follow. One of them glared up at him. “See something you like?”

“Heh, sorry fellas. I’m just trying to learn the game,” Magnus said.

“Sure, if you’re hoping to step in and hustle us out of money, you’re out of luck. This bastard across the table is already doing that,” said one of the men with a slight chuckle. “You’re a big sommabitch, I never seen you around here before!”

Magnus nodded. “I just came into town.”

The man slammed four cards down on the table and drew two out of the center stack. “I’m Cole Sheppard. This is Dean Wintz, Ken Illous, and Scott…” he pointed at them in turn.

Here it comes. It always went like this. He could lie and be just a regular guy, or he could tell the truth and watch the same thing that always happens happen. “Magnus Burnside.”

“Holy shit, you’re _the_ Magnus Burnside?” Ken said in a loud whisper. “We gotta buy you a drink.”

Magnus held his hands up. “There’s really no need, but maybe you can help me out,” he said. Daunte came by and handed him a glass of dark beer before moving on to Taako. “Thanks,” he said glancing at Daunte. “Is there a town noble that I can speak to?”

“All the well-off-types stay in the in The Perch,” said Cole. “They tend to stay kind of separate from the rest of us, but there aren’t many of them.”

“This Perch is just a section of town?” asked Magnus.

“It’s the part on that hill to the north east. You’ll see everything get all fancy-like when you get near it,” Cole smiled elbowing him in the side.

Scott’s voice was a high, nasally sound when he spoke. “Ehh, you might want to stay out of that area unless you like hoighty-toighty masquerade things,” he said.

“Oh, oh, that’s right,” said Ken hitting Scott in the arm with his free hand while hiding the cards with the other. “There’s always parties up there and one of them’s tonight. They’re not usually too welcoming to anyone. Though, you’re a celebrity.”

“What else can you tell me about this party?” asked Magnus pulling up a seat and dropping into it.

As Daunte passed and handed a drink to Taako two women were talking to him about having seen his show in Winterkeep. He seemed pretty distracted with the fans, but it sounded as if he was trying to steer the conversation back in the direction of the town information.

Daunte carried the final two drinks over to the bar with Annemarie stood alone, looking around nervously. “A stout beer for me and a fresh squeezed orange juice for the lady,” he said handing the glass to Annemarie.

“Thank you,” Annemarie smiled with a big beaming white smile.

He nodded an acknowledgement and clinked his glass into hers. After a few sips he looked around to see if anyone was within earshot and leaned in close just to make sure. “Do you ever get tired of the sideways glances and the weird looks?”

Annemarie’s cheeks reddened slightly. “Yeah, but there isn’t much I can do about how people choose to view me.”

Daunte shrugged. “If it’s any consolation I don’t think you have an evil bone in your body.” He took another drink. “Our doesn’t blood determine who we are. You’re your own person.”

A smile spread across Annemarie’s face. “Thanks, it seems to have taken me a long time to reach the point that I understand that,” she said. She tilted her head toward him slightly. “Looks like you figured it out before me.”

A gnarly looking Bugbear pushed his way into the space next to the pair of them and held one furry finger up. “I thought I told you to keep ‘em coming? Lord Kalan said that he’d pay for whatever we ordered,” he said pointing back to a table in the corner on top of a raised platform that was roped off.

“He said Kalan,” Annemarie whispered, putting her face down next to Daunte.

“We need to stall him.”

Annemarie lowered her gaze. “I think I might know a way to get access to them. Don’t think of any less of me, please.” She stepped over to the side of the Bugbear and pressed her back into the bar. “Did you say you know Kalan?”

The Bugbear looked her up and down. “I work directly for him.”

Her tone of voice was different now, with a sultry quality that Daunte hadn’t heard in the last few days of traveling. “Maybe you could put in a good word for a girl, tell him that someone wants to see him…” she giggled.

“Boss don’t like the lesser races—Tieflings, dirty half Orcs, that shit ain’t allowed in his company—you’d be hard pressed to get any kind of private audience with him,” the Bugbear’s drink came and he walked away.

Annemarie folded her arms. “That didn’t go as planned.”

Daunte sighed. “Magnus seems to be having better luck at least.”

 

* * *

 

The temple that was central to the town had been erected to the goddess Mielikki, which was appropriate given her close ties to the forest. This goddess also had a relationship of sorts with Pan and although Merle wasn’t in a home temple, there was a minor idol Pan there.

The temple was floor to ceiling wood with the exceptions of the candle holders that lined the sides of the aisles and the area around altar. A huge statue to Mielikki dominated the very front of the entire room.

Merle walked slowly through the room with his hands tucked into his coat pockets. He whistled a jovial tune as he admired the art murals that lined either side of the temple. A woman of Elven descent with tanned skin and white hair touched him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, are you in need of guidance.”

“No thanks, sister. I’m just here to see if there’s any assistance that you can provide me with some information?” asked Merle.

“It’s Lady Estenna,” she said. “And you are?”

“Merle Highchurch.”

“ _The_ Merle Highchurch?” she dropped to sit in a pew just to the side of him. “It’d be an honor to help you. Any way that I can.”

Merle scratched at his beard. “Well, a woman of the cloth such as yourself must have some connections here in town and I’m looking for a very specific man. Someone that goes by the name of Kalan.”

Lady Estenna’s face was a picture of confusion. “Lord Kalan? You didn’t need someone who had connections to ask about him. He practically runs the logging industry in this region! Has for about twenty-years now…”

“Damn, that’s some luck. He and I go back a long way and I was coming to deliver some news to him. Is there a way we can set up a meeting?” asked Merle. 

She smiled sheepishly. “I mean, you wouldn’t need me to, not that he respects the temple, but he’s having a huge shindig tonight. I’m sure that someone of your caliber would have no problem getting an invite.”

There was a pause and Lady Estenna remembered something. “Oh, you might want to do some shopping if you don’t have a suit on you—and the whole thing is one of those masquerade balls.”

“Hmm, well if you could point me toward some place to make those purchases and where I might get an invite, that’d be swell,” Merle said.

 

* * *

 

Lissette and Garfield made much worse time without the battlewagon. They reached the gates of Falcon’s Hollow at midday. It had been some time since Lissette had been here, but she hadn’t changed enough that people wouldn’t know her face. So she kept her hood pulled up and her hair braided and tucked back out of the way.

Of course, she didn’t mention this to Garfield, no need to tell him anymore than was necessary. It was clear that he had been to this town too, he navigated the streets in expert fashion. They made their way to a hilltop near the northern edge of town.

“What’s here? You said that you can contact an old friend from here?” asked Lissette.

“Oh yes,” Garfield said. “There’s something hidden here under everyone’s noses.”

“What?”

Garfield pointed to the hilltop and the well. “What type of town this size needs three wells?” He reached the side of well and removed a brick from the base of the well. There was glowing stone placed down inside of the hole. Garfield grasped it and muttered an incantation.

A circle of grass lowered into the ground slightly and slide apart to reveal a platform deep under the ground. The actual platform slowly rose with a huge spherical vehicle with a set of seats inside. The entire structure of the thing was made of glass, though it had yellowed with age. Bits of dirt still covered the top of it.

“What is this?” asked Lissette.

“Our ride,” Garfield said. “Let’s hope this still works.” He motioned for her to climb in and he grabbed the lever by the top where the trigger was and pushed it away from them. “The Bureau of Balance hid extraction points all over the Faerûn. I just remembered that this one never got used before the Hunger called the world to go tits up.”

He pressed a button and the huge sphere rotated and then leapt into the sky, traveling in a huge arc headed toward the moon and the former Bureau of Balance Headquarters.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new player appears on the board and our heroes take a trip to the store. Bonus style tips by Taako.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stuff contained below about suit buying is true according to the internet. Only the currency used to make the purchase is fabricated.

A carriage with windows blacked out rolled through the countryside along the path that skirted the edges of the Dark Moon Vale and Nentir Vale. The sun was beginning its descent, but it still wasn’t time.

The carriage was made up of wood stained black with tarnished golden trim that must have certainly been something to look at once upon a time. It was drawn by a pair of horses that trotted along the woodland path with a hooded driver seated behind them, steering them through the densely wooded trail.

Lady Boti sat against the back of the seat inside of the carriage on the plush, lavender seat with a thin elven man and a human woman at her sides. She held a hose that wrapped around the base of a stand went up into the side chamber of a boxy hookah that sat fixed to the floor. Smoke rolled out from between her dark red lips when she next opened her mouth. Though her companions were mostly nondescript, pale, lithe, with dirty blonde hair and sagging plain white tunics; she was an entirely different story. Her skin was dark brown and had an unnatural sheen like leather and her there wasn’t a blemish or mole or even a scar anywhere that could be seen. She wore a white dress that was split on both sides and left little to the imagination despite going to her ankles. It hugged her hips, waist, and breasts with a neckline that started as close as too low as one could get and still be fashionable.

Her eyes were rimmed in gold makeup with silver eyeshadow extending out around them and her hair was a thick, almost perfectly spherical mass of curls surrounding the top and back of her head. Boti took another drag on the hose and blew a set of smoke rings of varying sizes.

“It’s of no consequence to me, but the lack of your people’s tobacco in this part of the world is…disheartening,” she said to the Elf in her common tongue, a sort of creole of the language of the land she was currently in and a home she barely remembered. “Elven tobaccos are simply remarkable.”

The Elven man’s voice was weak. “Of course, Mistress. Only the finest for you.”

“Oh, darling you flatter me,” she said this time in Faerûn common tongue, a language that they referred to as common often, though it was only that in this land. “But flattery won’t earn you an extra turn,” she said touching his nose. “Everything in due time.”

The human woman’s eyelids were droopy and pink. “Does that means it’s on me again, Mistress?” she said in a monotone voice.

“You should be delighted,” Boti said her voice swelling with excitement. “Normally, my selection standards are much more rigorous,” she lifted the chin of the woman and looked her straight in the face. Boti’s eyes were like a normal human’s only a deep, unmistakable red. It may have scared some, but she made no effort to hide it. “But, as the men here say ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’. I have to make due.” She released the woman’s chin and lifted the woman’s wrist to her lips, sliding back the sleeve of the tunic sniffing her skin. All along the pale arm were pock marks where the skin had been punctured. Boti stopped at a fresh spot nearer to the joint of her arm and she opened her mouth revealing a row of normal teeth set on either side of fangs. She bit down into the woman’s arm drinking in the warm, metallic taste of the blood.

A trip like this had some challenges that a woman in Boti’s position had to overcome, but over the centuries she had developed methods to deal with the little inconveniences that immortality brought.

This was a hastily thrown together travel event because the invitation had only been sent out days before she was required to leave. Even then there was no way that she was going to miss one of Kalan’s infamous masquerade balls.

 

* * *

 

There wasn’t an alarm for a pod launch like this, but Avi could see that one of them had been set on a return course with the moonbase. He was a muscular man with tan skin and brown hair pulled back into a curly ponytail that had streaks of gray in places. He hastily worked the levers to try and clear the other pods in the hanger out of the way so that whoever this was would have a clear place to land.

“Shit man, it’s got to be Taako or Magnus or Merle—those guys are always pulling stunts like this.”

The part of the former Bureau of Balance to change the least was the Hanger. They were still in a false moon and people still had to get on and off of the damn thing. Some areas took on completely new uses—the Void Fish chamber had been converted into a memorial of sorts, really a museum for all of those who fought against the invasion. It didn’t see as much traffic as it once had, but sometimes it was nice to go down and just see a statue of Johann with his violin poised upon his shoulder.

A lot of people remember those days, but they don’t know the whole truth about them and they definitely aren’t aware of how one goes about reached the base unless it’s through one of the designated tourist ports.

Two minutes until arrival.

Something wooden and blunt clanked on the floor and without turning to see who it was Avi answered. “Madam Director, you don’t come down here often,” he said.

“I’ve come because it seems someone is trying to reach us from the surface using one of our old emergency pods,” she said as he stared at her with disbelief. “Do you expect me to be so woefully unaware of things that transpire on my moonbase?”

“No ma’am,” Avi said.

Director Lucretia was in her late sixties now, her hair was graying at the sides and cut short and curly. She carried her staff as much for spell casting now as it was for just getting around. Her dark skin had seemed to thin and wrinkle like tissue paper with age, though she still looked younger than humans she met her age.

“Where was the launch?” she asked.

“Around Falcon’s Hollow,” Avi said.

“The system is old, but it isn’t without it’s security measures. Anyone who did this would have to be a former Bureau employee and they can’t bring an army with them in one of those old pods,” she said. “Contact Killian, tell her to bring a security force, though a fight isn’t something this old base hasn’t seen before…”

The pod clunked down on the hanger floor with a loud noise and locked into place sitting upright. It took seconds for the passengers to dislodge the door. They weren’t really supposed to be used at this age and the wards that kept them from icing over were long gone.

Kilian arrived on the scene with a dozen men, her leather armor worn from wear and a large crossbow on her back. She was older now too, her greenish skin wrinkled slightly and her hair pulled back into a silver strange of braids. “Taako? Merle? Is that you guys?” she asked in a commanding tone.

The glass of the pod was opaque and as the door opened and an orange furry hand popped out Killian was puzzled.

“It is I, Garfield the Deals Warlock, Employee number eff-six-zero-nine-rwo…”

She cut him off. “What in the Nine Hells, Garfield? Will you cut that out? We don’t do that anymore.”

A human woman with blonde hair stepped out of the other side. “He said we were coming to warn you. He wouldn’t let me shower first. That’s why I smell like this…” she was holding her hands up above her head. The woman surveyed the room in amazement. “Nice.”

Lucretia made her way down from the canon control room. “Of all the employees it could have been, I never thought it’d be you…”

“Well the last time we had an issue that required your attention, I’m sure the whole world knew about it,” Garfield said.

“Who is she?” asked the Director.

“Lady Lissette Mezzlini. Is there a shower and some fresh clothes a girl can borrow?” she asked while doing a perfect curtsy.

“Take her to the old dormitory area, don’t let her wander off,” Killian told her soldiers.

The Director sighed. “And I’m going to need you to explain what’s going on…without trying to sell me anything,” she said looking at Garfield.

 

* * *

 

This ball drew a crowd from outside of the city limits and it’s thanks to Merle that the five of them are able to gain entry at all. As the afternoon wears on the taverns in the higher part of town begin to fill up and there’s no vacancy at the Inn. Clothing shopping is the last hurdle they approached in the ordeal. They had to be something that for most of them hadn’t been required before: fancy.

Taako traveled with a suit, so he had no need to shop. But he instructed the others in what they needed to look for: “Okay, so listen up dummies,” he was marching back and forth in front of a line made up of the other three men near the front of the men’s clothing store. “You need to get your shit modern,” he clapped between each word. “Cotton if you’re being cheap, but aim for camel or horsehair—or if you want that pimped out Taako shit, fucking glamor-weaved unicorn hair. There’s nothing better, but that will set you back. You want a suit with crown pockets, don’t ask me what that is, ask the people who work in the store, but people who notice these things will notice. Touch the fabric, you Neanderthals. Feel the stitching and the buttons. You want hand stitched, with buttons crafted from corozo nuts.

“What about me? Oh, you want me to sit this out, I guess?” Annemarie asked from off to his side.

“No, what? Sit this out? You’re the second prettiest one of us. I’m personally coming with you to help you get your sexy straight. You’re an integral part of Team Taako here,” he said placing his hands on her arms.

Annemarie started to play with her fingers and then stopped halfway through the motion to push a tendril of hair back behind her ear. “I didn’t think I would be…important to all of this. There was the whole thing about them not liking demi-humans.”

“You walk in like you own the place and no one’s going to say anything to you. And we’re all going to have that look,” Taako said. “Now,” Taako clapped his hands. “Does everyone understand their assignment. Oh, and make sure to get clothes that fit correctly and no tasteless patterns, Merle, I’m looking at you.

“What did I do?” Merle asked.

“I’ve seen your closet. It’s atrocious,” Taako said.

The split into two groups for the stores and Taako escorted Annemarie a few doors over to a boutique that had a fancy ornate sign.

The men took this chance to take Taako’s instruction. The three of them shopped with more gusto and seriousness than any of them had known when it came to choosing clothes. They walked the store checking fabrics and feeling different buttons.

The shop’s owner and tailor was a seemed to be of some magic affinity though it was hard to tell exactly what type. He took jackets in with a flourish of the hand that pulled the excess string out in a rapid strand. Magnus was the first to come across something that he liked. A suit that was a deep blood colored-crimson with a thin black tie.

The tailor was a thin half Orc man with a pencil mustache and gray skin. His accent was strangely cultured for the area. “Will you be holding while you’re at this engagement?” he asked pointing to the axe and shield.

“Who knows where the night will take me,” Magnus smiled.

“I’ll be sure to leave room for you to move…and this lining, would you like an Elven Mythril weave placed inside for...extra protection?” he asked.

“Can we do that?”

“Can we do that?” the tailor asked sarcastically. “Where do you think you are?” he seemed slightly offended. “Have you heard of a Ring of Arming?”

“No.”

“You store your weapons inside of the ring so that you can wear carry them inconspicuously. The kind that I offer are shielded against weak attempts at magic detection,” tailor worked at tugging on the lining and casting another spell to bring the suit coat in.

Daunte picked a similar suit to Magnus’s with a midnight blue suit with a silver sheen. He described the things that he had been told to find by Taako. Crown pockets. Buttons crafted not from plastic, but from nuts. No shoulder pads. A slender black necktie to top it off.

Merle had to do things the Merle way. A dark green suit with a light argyle pattern and, instead of the normal shoes that the others were getting, snake skin loafers. No pockets except on the pants and a pink bowtie. He affixed his _Extreme Teen Bible_ to a book holster that he strapped around his person.

They all took the rings of arming and when they were done testing them and setting code words the tailor called the three of them over to the counter where he had the suits boxed up. “I shall throw the rings in for free, but there is the question of enchantments.” He opened the back door to a small room.

“What do you mean?” Merle asked as they followed him ushering them into the area.

“What does it sound like I mean?” the tailor asked. “Feather fall, flames bane, mage armor, and, my personal favorite, levitation set to a code word…”

Magnus and Daunte pointed at each other. “Feather fall?” they both said.

“I’m going to have to go ahead and go with mage armor. You can never be too careful,” Merle said.

The tailor smiled. “You will not be sorry and we appreciate your patronage. All included you’re looking at three thousand—one thousand for each of you. You’ll be paying separately I take it?”

“Will two hundred platinum take care of?” Magnus pulled a stack of tricrowns out and laid them upon the counter top. The tailor smiled a smile that reminded Magnus too much of Garfield and swept the coins into a box where the money was kept.

“It’s been a pleasure,” said the tailor.

“Wait, why are you paying for us?” Daunte asked.

“This is all on my account. I made them make a promise I can’t even remember. I should have some say in at least this.”

“You’d do the same for us,” Merle said. “Now don’t we need masks?”

“They’re provided. The ticket says,” said Daunte.

“Good, the last thing we need to do now is fuck this up somehow…” Merle said.

 

* * *

 

Taako and Annemarie reclined back in a chair as four golems worked at giving them manicures and pedicures. They’d already gotten a massage and had gotten her fitted for a dress. The room was hot, filled with steam from the nearby radiator. It was a dry heat and it didn’t really effect the golems as they worked.

“So, this is your own dimension?” Annemarie asked. “And you use it for this?”

“What else would it be used for?” Taako said.

Annemarie shrugged. “I’m not really used to fancy type things,” she said.

“Well, I’m going to tell you sister, don’t get too used to all of this. We’re going to be doing your hair here in a minute and then we’ll hit up this ball,” he said.

“You said that I was important to the team? What did you mean?”

“We need you and Daunte on the ground floor to keep a lookout. We’re going to need to make sure we have a secure route out,” he said.

“How do we communicate?”

“Stones of farspeech,” he holds up his hand to show the bracelet dangling from his wrist. “You just act normal, dance or whatever and when we are ready to boogie you show us where to get down…”

Annemarie nodded. “I can do that.”

“And when things inevitably go tits up we need your tall ass in there laying down some pain with that morningstar.”

“That I can _definitely_ do.”


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan to kill Kalan is underway, but plans rarely go as they should with our boys...

The Perch was the most illustrious part of Falcon’s Hollow. It derived its name from the being the highest point of the city, resting atop a plateau that was guarded by a smaller secondary wall. On the night of a celebration like this an invitation was required just to get through that gate. The men, minus Taako, made their way up the steep dirt ramp that lead up to the gate with lines of other guests.

   
They wore the masks which had mysteriously showed up at their door with a secondary part of the invitation—a claim check for some tokens. It appeared that there would be a casino aspect to this thing.  
   
Past the gate everyone was dressed to the nines and wearing a mask that matched their outfit. Magnus noted a guard patrol, four armored men with halberds marching along the side of the buildings. “They’re serious about security it would seem,” Magnus sighed.  
   
“Yeah, but if we stick to the plan we shouldn’t even need to fight any of them. No one else gets hurt,” Merle said.  
   
“When was the last time anything went as planned for us?” asked Magnus.  
   
Merle held his hand up to count things off. “Trapping the Hunger, escaping Wonderland, the moon didn’t fall into the planet, and that train never hit Neverwinter…”  
   
“You’re skipping over the parts where we let another totally different town get destroyed, suffered from a decade of amnesia, started a global war over artifacts we created, and—oh—and this.” He grabbed Merle by the wooden arm and held it up.  
   
A few of the people around them were glancing back to see what the commotion. Daunte grabbed Magnus’s arm. “We need to play it cool. We’re almost there, we just need to get through those doors,” he pointed to the manor ahead, a huge white house with columns lining the front of the building. It rested below one of the Moonlight towers so it was bathed in arcane light.  
   
They took Daunte’s suggestion and were quiet until they got through into the doors of the huge house. They handed their tickets over and they were handed back. “Introducing Magnus Burnside, Merle Highchurch, and Daunte!”  
   
As they walked down the steps Daunte leaned in. “That’s how it’s done, gentlemen. You never give them a last name?” The navy blue featured mask he wore almost poked Magnus in the face.  
   
“How many masquerade balls are you going to?” asked Merle.  
   
“I’d imagine as many as you,” Daunte said with a laugh.  
   
The inside of the house put the outside to shame. It was marble and deep, browned wood. Everything seemed to glimmer and there was a torch lit quality to everything as the only source of light was what spilled in through the window in the ceiling and huge torches that dangled from the ceiling on chains.  
   
A band played dressed in white suits at the far end of the world, but due to some form of audio-mancy it was as if they were playing near enough to you for you to hear everything, but not too loud as to make it hard to speak and hear one another. The nearest thing to them were food and drinks, with a dance floor just past that. The part of the room in front of the stage was the casino.  
   
A second-floor balcony was mostly out of sight as the light didn’t penetrate into that area. When they reached the bottom of the steps Merle went right for the food with Magnus close behind. “Do you have eyes on any guards?”  
   
“Oh yeah,” Magnus said. “Black armor with fancy helms and swords and spears. I don’t see any shields.”  
   
“There’s also these guys in the black dress suits and sunglasses. Look at how they’re moving and looking around. That’s how you read a crowd,” Daunte said.  
   
Daunte was right Magnus saw, the little bit of rogue training that he did have taught him to be careful of anything that seemed off. These men were all very much in that category. They loaded plates with food and snacked as they walked around the edge of the dance floor.  
   
A local brewery provided kegs of stout, almost black beer and when their food was done they got a few of those and sipped them as they watched the door. Every few minutes the man near the door would announce someone’s entry.  
   
“From the far of land of Sharshara we have Mulimar Qesem,” a man entered in a white suit shaking the hands of those on the sides of the stairs.  
   
“Introducing Lady Dee from…nowhere?” the announcer sounded confused. A woman with dark brown ringlet curls and wearing a long black gown stepped down the stairs. An umbrella slung over her shoulder.  
   
The band was playing the Minuet of Story and Song when Taako and Annemarie appeared in the doorway. Taako wore a teal suit that seemed to change color with how the light hit it and his hair was pulled up into a messy bun. He was without his hat and usual affects. He put his arm out and Annemarie hooked her arm through it, though if she hadn’t been with Taako it might have been hard to tell who they were looking at. Annemarie was in a blue off-the-shoulder dress that had a neck that plunged at the center, with a small opening between the breasts that was encircled with shimmering jewels. Her red hair was lifted and curled so that it used her horns to rest upon. She was frecklier than her face would let on, though there were certainly some. A stream of them ran across her upper chest and from shoulder to shoulder. Perhaps the most interesting thing about her was her arm, the right arm, was covered in tattoos up to the point where her sleeve would have covered—flowers and a fox and all manner of things wrapping around her up with a Pelor holy symbol at the top.  
   
The mask Taako wore actually covered his forehead and came down onto the bridge of the nose. It was purple. And Annemarie wore a mask that had small ears jutting up on the sides of her forehead.  
   
Magnus nodded. “Kid cleans up nice.”  
   
“Clearly, Taako chose the wrong career path,” Merle said.  
   
Daunte just stared and when that became too weird he took a big swig of beer.  
   
“I give to you Lady Annemarie Wormwood and Taako…from TV!”  
   
Taako shouted as they descended. “You’re goddamn right.”  
   
The party pulled together to meet in the middle. Magnus and Merle carried extra drinks to them. “You look fancy,” Merle said elbowing Annemarie in the side.  
   
“You too,” she smiled.  
   
Taako looked them over. “You did good. You didn’t fuck it up. That’s, uh, that’s actually an appropriate pattern, Merle.”  
   
“I have to say, I make this shit look good,” Merle said.  
   
Magnus put his arms on Taako and Merle’s shoulders. “This turned out better than I thought it would.”  
   
“What’d I tell you? We’re prepared. ‘By failing to prepare you’re only’…” Merle said but was cut off by Taako.  
   
“If you finish that quote I will Power Word Kill you. I’ll burn the level nine spell slot. Don’t make me,” Taako said.  
   
Annemarie walked up to Daunte and grabbed the lapel of his jacket, wrapping her hands around the inside of the suit to feel the lining. “Very handsome,” she said, her voice small.  
   
“Thanks. You look gorgeous.”  
   
“Well, you can thank Taako. He’s so sweet to help me do all of this.”  
   
Taako stepped over by Merle and Magnus. “You don’t have to thank me, just do your part. Dance, eat, drink and keep an eye on that exit and find us a way out.”  
   
“Aye-aye.”  
   
“So, boys are you ready to murder someone and hide the body?” asked Taako.  
   
“Sounds like old times,” Merle said.  
   
The three of them snaked their way through the crowds toward a set of stairs that was guarded by a dwarven man in a suit with a thick beard.  
   
“Merle, you’re on,” Taako said.  
   
Merle walked over. “Hey, Joseph is that you? I haven’t seen you since the family reunion!”  
   
“Who?” the other dwarf said as he stepped out to speak to Merle. With a flourish of the hand Taako put him to sleep and Merle caught him around the arms and dragged him back onto the stairs. It appeared no one saw them and they slipped up the stairs with him in tow. Taako cast silent image, replicating the guard who had been there and having him look about every few minutes.  
   
Taako held his bracelet to his face. “We’re upstairs,” he said.  
   
Annemarie’s reply came back. “We’re dancing and we have eyes on the door.”  
   
Daunte spoke turning his head slightly so that he was facing the bracelet. “The um, casino area seems like it’d be a good place to get a distraction going if need be.”  
   
“Good, keep an eye on it. We’re working our way to…whatever,” Magnus said.  
   
The second floor was a floor that seemed to be mostly associated with the ball. Things are quieter up here, people seemed to be standing in tighter knit groups and talking in low tones. What little dancing there was seemed to be more of a reaction to the music than something people wanted to do.  
   
Taako, Magnus, and Merle stuck to the hallway where the stairs were and made their way around to the back of the upper floor. There were guards posted at the entrances to this hall, so there must have been some other way upstairs that didn’t grant access to the entire floor.  
   
The hall was covered in plush carpet that padded their steps. At one of the bends in the hall next to a room there was a huge portrait hanging on the wall. Magnus stopped and examined the picture. Blonde hair swept to the side and piercing blue eyes. This man had once been handsome in a way, but he had aged to a point where the skin of his face sagged and his skin color had changed to a slight red. The artist clearly was encouraged to paint this person in a realistic light, rather than a flattering one.

And somehow Magnus remembered this man. He didn’t know what it was about him, but he remembered the random encounter clear as day. He was quiet for a long time and Merle and Taako stopped to stare alongside him. “That’s him, then?” asked Merle.

“I know him,” Magnus said. “He came into my workshop right after the…after the Hunger. It must have been a few months.”

“Kalan came to see you?” Asked Taako.

“He looked at me like he expected something and he talked about Raven’s Roost. Said that he hadn’t been there at the time…but that it had been a nice city. Even said it was a shame what happened,” Magnus said.

Taako looked to Merle. “Why would he chance it? He couldn’t know what Magnus’s reaction would be.”

Merle shrugged and put his wooden hand on Magnus’s back. “He’s older now, but you can still tell it’s him.”

“It stuck with me, I never knew why…”

The three of them made their way through the corridors to an elevator. The carriage wasn’t enclosed like the modern sort, it was the old fashioned kind with a accordion-gate that pulled closed on the front. They loaded into it and rode to the top floor.

 

* * *

 

Daunte leaned out from Annemarie, their bodies still pressed together at the midsection and glanced her up and down. She would give a nervous smile every few seconds and then avoid eye contact by resting her chin back on his shoulder.

“S-sorry that my dancing is such shit,” Annemarie said over his shoulder.

His hand moved up to her shoulder. “It’s fine, we’re not really here for all of this.”

“Ah, you stuck around for Magnus. He’s your hero and all.”

“It wasn’t just for Magnus, but my town owed him a debt of gratitude. We owe it to them all, but he was kind of our main guy—we erected a statue of him there,” Daunte said.

“That a hope of yours?” Annemarie asked. “To someday be worthy of a statue in a town somewhere.”

He shook his head. “I mean, I value a fair fight—or a fight that I’ve got the upper hand in, but I don’t have lofty aspirations like that. Maybe just help people, find a pretty girl, settle down on the edge of a city somewhere…the regular life.”

“I did not expect that. Shouldn’t be hard though, those are common things you can find in another person.”

The music from the band swelled and then the two of them were frozen. Daunte was kissing her and she wasn’t used to just being kissed like this. Her eyes were open, still in shock, as a couple was there and gone, there and gone behind Daunte as they danced in and out of sight. The kiss lasted long enough for a small breath to escape her with a slight moan. Of course, the noise in the room would over that, Daunte might not have even heard it.

“Didn’t expect that either,” her lips were still parted, but her eyes were smiling.

“I didn’t mean to force you to—“

She cut him off. “Would you like to find somewhere more private to…discuss this?”

The pair of them made for the front doors. The announcer glared at them as they passed and said nothing. The night air had rapidly cooled in the time that they had been inside. It was damp and crickets chirped from unseen places. Near the bushes that lined the front of the manor there was a dark carriage with golden trim. The driver was nowhere to be found and there was no one guarding it.

Annemarie checked the carriage door and found it to be open. Daunte climbed inside and helped her in. There was no light inside the carriage, but as she climbed in her dark-vision took over. She could see as clearly as anyone could in greyscale. In the center of the carriage there was something set into the middle of the floor. “Look out for that,” she told Daunte, keeping her voice low.

He fumbled, taking her by the waist and pushing her up against a table that was at the carriage’s front. Annemarie lifted her mask and then his. She tested her weight against it and found it to be sturdy, so she climbed up onto the surface and pulled Daunte in by the tie. Daunte was different than the men in Waterdeep with foul breath who wanted the forbidden touch of an infernal woman.

She giggled and Daunte pulled away from her. “What?” He said with a smile.

“Your belt is tickling my leg,” she said putting the back of her hand to her mouth.

“Sorry, this is all happening a little fast,” he said.

“It’s okay, we probably shouldn’t stay too long though,” she said.

 

* * *

 

Whereas the ballroom floor was filled with guests and lively music this upper floor of the manor was almost silently except for the quietly playing music that came from somewhere off in the distance. Dark blue and purple light spilled in from stained glass windows and the carpet was plusher, cracking under foot from age and lack of use.

Magnus followed Merle and Taako through the twisting stone corridor. They checked doors as they went, but most of the rooms were empty. They finally came to a large wooden door painted red with metal braces set to hold the wood in place.

The three of them lifted their masks and Taako pressed his hand to the door and pushed it slowly, the room before them was huge and long. It consisted of a bed, a table, some chairs, and an open doorway that led to a balcony. That extended out behind the manor and overlooked a river far below.

A man sat in a wheeled chair with his back to them, his hair like dry straw swooping down the back of his head. “Who’s there?” The old man called.

Two women lay in the bed, barely covered by robes, letting their bodies cool in the night air. Merle looked to them and then to the old man as he stepped fully into the room. “I think you’ve been expecting this for a long while, Governor Kalan,” he said.

“No one’s called me that for sometime,” the old man said.

Magnus hung back, but Taako stepped through the door and with a swoop of his hand extinguished the candles that stood by the bedside. “You’re his bedwarmers?” he asked, his voice too calm.

The women nodded, one of them letting out a frightened yelp.

“Leave,” Taako ordered them.  
   
They rushed past Magnus at the doorway and ran out down the hall. The old man wheeled around to face them. His hands rested in his lap and the right side of his face twitched. “What-what are you doing here?” the man asked. He glanced to the doorway. “Magnus Burnside, I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”

Though they had been instructed not to let Kalan say anything, Taako and Merle waited. “You’re the man who came to see me all those years ago. Why?” Asked Magnus.

The old man laughed. “I came to see you thinking that I might kill you myself before you came to find me. But I chanced upon you when you shouldn’t have been in your shop. You didn’t know me from Adam. I asked around and you still remembered that girl…you remembered losing her, you just had forgotten me. So I felt it best to leave you to wallow in self pity and regret over the loss of the woman you loved. Your punishment seemed much more fitting that way,” said Kalan.

Magnus stepped through the door. “Her name was Julia,” he said. “You killed her?”

“Yes, but I have done you a kindness, I didn’t kill you and you won’t kill an old man who’s wheelchair bound. You won’t raise that axe against an unarmed, elderly man in his home which you broke into under false pretense. You came here expecting a fight, but you’ve found the fight is all gone from me. The cleric, he won’t kill me, revenge is not a godly thing. “

Kalan wheeled himself away from them and headed for the balcony. “Go back to your adventurer’s school and your celebrity life. Leave an old man in peace.”

Taako stepped into a beam of moonlight that bisected the room. His fingers poised against the wand hidden up the sleeve of his dinner jacket. “I guess the cheese stands alone,” Taako said.

“Huh?” Asked Kalan as he turned back. Taako brought his wand up and motioned expertly. He held the wand straight out and a thin green beam of magic energy shot across the room, passing through the wide space between Magnus and Merle. The second it touched Kalan he was reduced to a wispy gray ash that blew away on the wind.

“Oh, I forgot to say ‘that was for Julia’,” Taako said.

Footfalls of guards were heard in the hall. They must have been tipped off by the women they released earlier. Magnus stood stunned, Merle drew his shield and weapon. “So, the plan’s gone to shit, then?” Asked Merle.

“Doesn’t it always,” Magnus said finally.

 

* * *

 

Annemarie’s hearing was sharper than Daunte and over his breaths and whispers in her ear she heard the first sounds of it. The clang of swords somewhere above. “Wait,” she said.

Daunte looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“We need to go inside…fighting,” she said.

“Huh?”

There was an explosion and something rained down from the sky clattering on the ground. Annemarie clutched her dress to her bare chest and leaned up to look out the darkened windows. “We’ve got to help them escape,” she said.

They hastily dressed as he finally got what she was saying. There was a rush of night air as they threw open the carriage door. They pulled their masks down and headed off to the manor doors.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annemarie goes feral. Daunte gets thrown off a balcony. Boti gets trapped. Merle casts some spells. 
> 
> And the gang finally meets Lissette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really slow with this part of the story for several reasons. I just got caught up in some other work I was doing and there's some podcast stuff that I've been trying to put out. 
> 
> I hope that you all enjoy where this is going!

Lissette was wearing an embroidered coat that was teal and green, it was slightly too small for even her thin frame. She had put on a skirt that stuck out beneath the coat and her riding boots. Most of the moonbase common grounds were vacant. She walked across the empty space drying her hair with the towel that she had been given. 

The bath houses here were exquisite. She couldn’t imagine that one day this place had been secret from all of the world. It just seemed like a second moon. It was always supposed to have been there—why would anyone suspect it?

The older man, Avi, was at the controls for the canon still, though his eyes dropped now. She stopped below the room in the open of the hanger. “Hey, Avi—that’s your name right?” 

He bounced slightly with shock. “Oh, yeah. What—what are you doing here?” 

“I need you to send me back to Falcon’s Hollow. I have some business to see to and that cat stole me,” she said. 

“The Director said you can leave as you want, but the dead are coming. Are you sure that you want to go back without the fighting force we’re sending?” He asked. 

“Someone has to warn the people in that town if the dead are getting there sometime soon. You can tell the Director I’ve gone back. I’ll stay put as long as I can, but I don’t plan on getting eaten alive.” 

Avi stepped out onto the control room balcony and dug in a lockbox next to the railing. “If you have to go take this,” he chunked a stone through the air, Lissette barely caught it. “It’s a Stone of Farspeech—it’ll let us keep in contact with you while you’re on the ground. It can be blocked or intercepted, but it’s pretty reliable.” 

“It looks like a regular rock…” she said. 

“Don’t be fooled.” He went back into the room. “Now where do I need to send you.” 

“Well can I just describe the area and the town and you ballpark it?” Lissette asked. 

“Ready when you are!” 

 

* * *

 

Annemarie and Daunte charged the doors of the manor, but the place was already in disarray. The guests were frozen in place and when the two of them appeared in the doorway a god portion of the room turned to face them. The two guards near the entrance closed in on them from either side, drawing their weapons from unseen places. 

Daunte was quick to pivot and activate the ring of arming, the guard to his side ran into his sword and was impaled on it. Annemarie’s morningstar appeared in a flash of light and she swiped the other guard’s ankles knocking him onto his and kicked the weapon from his hands. 

She began to mutter a prayer.

“What’s this one?” Daunte asked, more guards were pushing through the crowd on all sides.

Annemarie grabbed his hand. “Follow me!” She said pulling him forward and as she stepped high off the step she began to walk up into the air above the heads of the crowd with Daunte in tow. 

“Whoa, what the Hell?” He yelled.

There were gasps from the crowd below and the guards looked up to see them overhead pushing further upward. “We make for the second floor balcony,” Annemarie said. “I’ve never done this in a dress—bad idea,” she added. 

They were just about to the second floor when a dark skinned woman in the crowd wearing a swoop dress leaped onto the support column of the second floor balcony. Daunte pointed, “What is she?” 

She was pressed to the support column like a bug and skittered up it, hanging her head over backward to get a look at them and then continuing on up until she was on the second floor. 

Annemarie and Daunte landed on the dance floor of the second floor with shocked gasps and cries all around them. People were pointing as the other woman broke through the crowd at the edge of the dance floor and charged them. 

Daunte pushed Annemarie behind him and covered her body with his, his sword and shield at the ready. “Listen, lady—we don’t know—“

She motioned with a swatting gesture and Daunte was sent tumbling over the balcony back down to the dance floor below. Annemarie screamed, but kept her wits enough to get off a cast of bull’s strength. The magic came and she felt her gods power flow through her, but there was a pause, a hesitation in the answer of the call. 

The other woman slammed into her and knocked the weapon away with a swat. When they came in contact the first thing she noticed was that this woman was cold to the touch. Her skin was smooth like polished leather, but she didn’t feel alive. 

Annemarie immediately knew what this was. “Vampire,” she sneered. When she managed to bat the other woman’s hand away, she reached up to her holy symbol and tore it away. Lunging forward she pressed the Pelor sun symbol to the vampire’s forehead. There was a sizzle. “Banish darkness from light. Banish darkness from light. Banish darkness from light…” she repeated the words over and over, but the vampire seemed to be less and less effected. 

The vampire jumped high and kicked Annemarie with both feet sending her bouncing across the dance floor. At the same time the vampire flipped back and landed in a low crouch, ready to pounce like a cat. “Little girl, you bring violence upon me simply because of what I am—I’ve done nothing to earn your god’s ill will this time,” she said in a thick accent.

“You attacked me and you’re not exactly making it easy to ignore that you’re an abomination!” Annemarie said sitting up. 

The woman moved her arms in smooth twisting motions, arcane movement that Annemarie didn’t recognize, she thrust her fist toward the cleric and it was if she had punched. Annemarie was thrown onto her back. 

The vampire bounded the distance and landed straddling Annemarie and pinning her to the wooden floor. “I survived the Shaar Savannah before the desolation and I survived That slavers and I survived a transformation into the creature you see before you—how many clerics do you think have come to end Lady Boti of Tammar!” she said. 

Annemarie tried to cast, but nothing came and Boti’s hand was at her throat. She could feel her neck starting to pop from the pressure and the only thing holding her together was the bear strength’s spell. If that wore off she’d be dead. 

“Was that a prayer I heard go unanswered. Such fickle things, gods. In hundreds of years I’ve learned its best to trust only in one’s self,” Boti said. 

“Someone taught you wrong though,” an axe touched Boti’s neck from the side and she glanced up to see a tall man with sun reddened skin and white hair standing over her in a suit. “Let go of her neck.” 

Boti moved to raise her hands and glance around. There was an Elf, Wizard probably, another Cleric, and this axe wielding man. She’d dealt with worse, though the Elf she thought she knew. 

“How fast do you think you are, old man?” Asked Boti. 

“Plenty,” said the man with white hair just as Boti turned into smoke and rapidly retreated to the far side of the room. 

“So the three of you are? Her guardians?” Boti asked. 

“Friends of hers,” the Elf said. 

“Hey, you’re that chef wizard from the TV, Taako,” Boti said pointing at him. 

Annemarie was gasping for air when she bounded up. “Daunte! He fell,” she glanced over the balcony and there was a smear of blood, but Daunte was gone. The floor had cleared out for the most part. “Daunte…” 

Taako’s head swiveled toward Annemarie. Boti looked too, the air was becoming charged with something. “Shit,” Taako said. 

“Tell your two friends they might want to find something to hold on to,” Boti said turning to her side to face Annemarie. 

“You don’t know who we are?” Asked the other cleric, a dwarf.

“Should I?” Boti asked. 

“This is Magnus Burnside and Merle Highchurch,” Taako said quickly, keeping and eye on Annemarie as she stalked forward slowly. 

“Those names don’t ring a bell, maybe your reputations aren’t as grand as you thought. As I said, I’m from Thay. Now, if you don’t want to die by your friend’s hand I would suggest you leave…” 

Merle went to step toward Annemarie and Taako grabbed him. “No, she’s bleeding Infernal energy…I wouldn’t.” 

“Where is he!” Annemarie screamed and a red wave of energy erupted from her tearing the wooden tiles from the floor and scorching the walls. Magnus blocked Taako and Merle with his shield and Annemarie charged, her feet shaking the entire floor as she ran.

Boti was frozen like an animal waiting for the opportune moment. As Annemarie reached her she was easily overpowered, the tall redheaded cleric seemed more menacing now, her body engulfed in unholy energy. Boti dug her feet in, but they slid. She went for the neck, but Annemarie swiped her away. 

“Has she felt the touch of a man recently?” Boti yelled.

Merle peeked out. “That seems personal, but she’s on a vow of celibacy—so no…” 

“She smells of sex and cheap buffet food—she’s been with someone, it’s why she’s so strong. If I had to guess it was probably the man I flung off the balcony!” Boti said.

Magnus looked to Taako. “Daunte? He would be okay…the feather fall in the suits!” 

They went to run for the stairs but more guards were coming. They braced for the onslaught, but everything frozen when a horrid scream filled the air. Boti was impaled on Annemarie’s arm, and Annemarie had forced her arm through up to nearly the shoulder. The vampire smoke out to escape. 

Magnus rushed the first of the guards and knocked him down the stairs into his compatriots and Taako sent a black sludge up all around the men to hold them in place. 

Boti was more resilient than one would have first guessed. She reappeared at Annemarie’s back and held her tight. “I can’t turn you, but I can drink you dry!” She bit into Annemarie and from this position Annemaire couldn’t shake her. 

Merle held a holy book high and did the one thing that no one would have seen coming. Boti felt something tugging at her mind, someone fighting to take her over. The mental fight to keep her control and the physical one against Annemarie was too much. She fell back onto the ground, took weakened to smoke out. Somehow this tiny dwarf was able to best her. He drew a circle around her in flame as she struggled and nearby glasses of water emptied to fill the circle. She could feel the blessing of the water pushing against her. She’d be trapped unless someone broke the circle. 

Then, before Annemarie could figure out what to do Merle cast hold person knocking her to the ground where she lay struggling. “I’m getting a lot of use out of that,” he said. He walked over to Annemarie and stroked her hair. “Sweetie, you need to calm down…” 

“Who are you?” Boti asked. 

“We told you,” Merle said. 

“You’re nobodies…” she said. 

“Hey lady, we saved you! We saved the whole world…” Merle said. 

“I’m guessing you’re referring to the Darkness? Huh, I didn’t know…I could see it but at first it seemed no one else could. And then all of a sudden they could. I fought back and it just…ended.” 

Taako spoke up. “She won’t know us. The void fish song doesn’t work on liches. Probably the same for vampires. And she’s ancient.” 

“Void fish?” Asked Boti as she took a seat in her circular prison. “You definitely are more interesting than the usual people I make into meals…” 

Magnus watched over the balcony as guards scrambled around in a panic. There wasn’t much chance they were going to give up. “They must have taken Daunte…and they have the elevator. We need to do something and fast.” 

“They’re going to release me,” Boti said. “I’m an honored guest of Lord Kalan.” 

“Kalan is dead.” Taako said. 

“And when I tell them you killed him I’m sure they’ll really give you a chance to explain yourself.” Boti said. 

“How long is she trapped for?” Asked Taako.

“At least an hour,” Merle said. 

“Good, we need to deal with these guys now,” Magnus said.

Annemarie was still struggling against the hold, but unable to make much headway. She seemed to be losing whatever energy she had tapped into. And then there was movement in the hallway on the other side of the dance floor. All of the people had cleared out when this whole thing first started, so it had to be more security. 

Magnus caught them as they came through the doorway, cutting the first man down so that his body folded off to the side of the door in a bloody heap. The second man through was all Taako’s. Bolts of arcane energy tore through him and pushed him back into the two men behind him knocking them down. Crossbow bolts fired through the doors opening caused the next man to drop back to cover against the door. 

And then there was a loud crash upstairs. “Oh great, what could that be?” Asked Merle.

“Probably more trouble,” Magnus said. 

 

* * *

 

The transport sphere was a little more complex than Lissette had known and when she pulled the leaver that she thought was to steer the thing she remembered that considering that t had been fired out of a canon on the moon the thing probably didn’t have steering. 

When the sphere rammed into the top of large house and bounced through a wall to stop on the opposite side of the hall, Lissette was upside down and tilted slightly forward. She braced her legs against the sides of the container and put her arms on the roof to hold herself steady as she unstrapped the safety harness to slide down into the control panel. 

“Almost on target. How long has that Avi guy been doing this if he’s that bad?” she stumbled out of the sphere and pressed herself against the wall for stability. Her bow and pack were wedged against the side of the control panel and she reached in to get them. 

When she had flown over the grounds of the manor was packed with carriages of all shapes and sizes. She wondered what had been going on here. She hadn’t set foot in Falcon’s Hollow in years. She saw no reason to relive the past. 

With her pack slung over her arm she started down the hall. Her leg was injured, blood ran down the side of it just above her boot-line. As she walked it started to warm and then numb. It was all that she really needed to get by for the time being. 

The old house hadn’t changed since she last sat foot in it. The carpets were still the plush, crunchy kind of aged that came from having too much money and space and too little people to fill or use it. A lot of the doors to the rooms were left open, which seemed odd. 

When she finally reached the master bedroom she found a wheelchair sitting in the center of the floor near the huge doors that led out to the balcony, which were also open. She had heard that Lord Kalan was wheelchair bound—when she had last been around he was having a slight issue walking from some injury sustained in a fight long ago that he didn’t dare tell her the truth of. 

She grimaced, worried that she was missing something and headed down in the elevator. It took a while for it to reach the top. Someone was using it, more than likely. When she was able to board the elevator and head down she was greeted in the hallway by a contingent of security men that were lined up against the wall. The three nearest to her turned with their swords and spears at the ready. 

“Lady Lissette Mezzlini, I’d find somewhere else to point those weapons,” Lissette said. 

“Ma’am? That can’t be you!” One of the older men yells. 

“I have the signet ring to prove it,” she said holding her hand up. “Now, where’s Lord Kalan?” 

Two of them looked at each other. “We think he’s gone. We’re not sure where, but it seems that three invaders killed him.” 

“If you didn’t find a body I wouldn’t be so sure. Where are these invaders, now?” There were sounds like combat in the other room. “In there?” 

They nodded.

“Okay, stand down for now, pull back from the door,” Lissette said. They reluctantly listened as the more seasoned among them, knowing that she was telling the truth, stepped back and moved to stand at attention. She walked toward the door to the upstairs gallery with her hands in the air. “Whoever is in there, I’m calling the guards off and coming out to talk with my hands up.” 

“Who are you?” Came a gruff voice though the wall. 

“That depends on what you tell me. My name is Lissette and I’m just coming out to talk. There’s a bow on my back and it’s going to stay there, other than that I don’t have weapons out.” 

One of the guards leans in as Lissette passes. “We captured a fellow, too. He’s being held in the coatroom downstairs—badly hurt, he is.” 

“See that he gets medical attention, then?” Lissette asked. 

As she stepped into the doorway she spotted five people. Two women, a succubus under the influence of some spell on the floor and a woman with dark skin stuck in a circle. The three men were standing near them with various guard’s bodies piled near the door. 

She kept her hands where they could be seen and stepped out into the torch light of the dance floor. “Okay, will you let me talk to you all without trying to add me to your man-meatloaf over here?” 

The biggest of the five, a tall white haired man with a hulking figure cried out the moment that his eyes met Lissette’s. “Julia?” He moved impossibly fast, lunging in with his axe down and bringing it up to cut in a single motion. He knocked Lissette onto her back and when he swung she kicked the axe so that it was deflected to the side. With the momentum from the kick she rolled backed and jumped up onto her feet. 

There was a second solid swing and she dodged back. Then there was another and she ducked. The white haired man kept coming. “Why do you have her face? What are you?” 

This man’s companions seemed as caught off guard as she was. She had a backup plan for if things went badly, but she hadn’t expected this kind of bad. She reared back as he swung and punched the air in front of his stomach. A spectral fist was was projected out of the gauntlet she wore and sent him careening to the floor. 

“Julia was my mom…she died when I was a baby, fuck face.” Lissette brought her bow up. “Now stay back, final warning.” 

The man sat up, his friends staring at him. “Your mom?” 

“Yeah, surely you’ve got one. Nice lady, shoots you out of her cooch, lets you drink from her tit, you know a mom.” 

“How could she…” he got to his feet and let the axe fall. Merle and Taako were at his sides. 

“My father met her in this town called Raven’s Roost. Some rebels blew the whole thing up an killed her, but he got me out alive,” she explained. He’s always been kind of vague.

“That’s because he’s a goddamn liar. He blew up Raven’s Roost, he killed my wife Julia.” 

“If she’s your wife, why don’t you know she had a kid?” Asked Lissette. 

The man drops his head as if to think about what he’s been told. And then he drops back to sit on the floor. “I was gone for almost a year one time. It was a bad winter and I didn’t really hear from her…why would she keep this from me?” 

The woman that sat inside of the circle on the floor sighed. “She’s your kid. I can smell it on her.” 

“Lord Kalan Mezzlini is my bastard of a father. Him being a shitty man is exactly why I wasn’t here tonight…it’s why I’ve been gone from Falcon’s Hollow for years now.” 

“He must have stolen her,” says the dwarven man. “Maybe to get back at you Magnus or to torture Julia?” 

Lissette lowered her bow. “I can’t really process all of this right now. I only came back to warn everyone here…there’s an army of undead on its way and the former Bureau of Balance is sending some support, but it’s a shitshow East of here.” 

“The BOB sent you?” Asked the elven man. 

“Not really, this merchant and I were having a dispute over a purchase in Tolos and the town was attack. We barely escaped and he said he was former BOB and took me there.” 

“Merchant? You mean Garfield?” Said Magnus. 

“Yeah, that was him.” 

The dwarf spoke up again. “You said the dead are coming? How many?” 

 

* * *

 

Annemarie is inside of her body and not. She’s in the room on the floor with Magnus, Merle and Taako surrounding her and with the Vampire bitch that might have killed Daunte. And she’s somewhere else filled with light so bright that it surpasses anything she’s ever imagined. 

She’s standing on a hill and in the distance, through the light she can make out the edges of something slightly darker like buildings on the horizon. There’s a road nearby and on the side of the road there’s an old man with grey cloak and a bald head and a walking stick to help prop him up on the rock he sits on. 

“Annemarie Wormwood, my how you’ve grown.” He said with a little chuckle. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t get this…are we where I think we are?” She asked.

The old man nods. “There’s not always a need for crypticness. I am the Lord of Light after all.” 

“Oh, sir,” she drops to her knees bowing as low as she can manage. “I’m sorry to disrespect you…” 

“You should be sorry to disrespect yourself. You do a great disservice to who you are, my child.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“You do. Your faith faltered and you allowed your power to be lost during the fight with Boti!” 

“You denied me access to my magic, though.” 

“I did no such thing.” 

“But I broke my vow. I had sex and I know I said I wouldn’t, but it just happened. I don’t know why it was suddenly so hard to resist.” 

“Sex was never my problem. I haven’t ever asked my followers to sacrifice something they enjoy because they fear it. I ask them sacrifice to show devotion. You’re scared of what you are. That somehow sex is tied to your Infernal birthright. You’re still human, more human than you are anything else. Sex is a very human thing.” 

Annemarie sighed. “But I can trick men into it. Well, I can give them a push. I’m built to be enticing and it’s not fair to them.” 

“You sound like the men who want to make excuses for their own behaviors. Those men know what they’re doing and the same way they don’t take coin from he blind man’s cup they don’t have to jump on any woman that comes by. You could be nude in the streets of Waterdeep and it would still be up to a man how he reacted,” the old man said. 

Annemarie was crying. “Mister Pelor, sir…I still think this hunger in me drives to be like a predator. Look what Infernal power made me do here to the people around me.”

“Protect your friend?” the old man said. “You act like horniness is some sort of magic power that determines how men act whether their the ones that are experiencing it or the ones near it. You wanted something, Daunte wanted something. Don’t use your Infernal blood or a vow made to me under false pretenses as a crutch because you’re scared.” 

“So you’ve, wanted somebody before?” Asked Annemarie. 

“You met the Raven Queen before,” the old man smiled and nodded very rapidly. Then after a beat he stood up and came in close to Annemarie and hugged her. He was so warm and he smelled of sunflowers. “I don’t want to stifle young love or to see you suffer out of fear,” he said finally. “And you know what, you’re going to be amazing. There are bright things ahead for you.” 

There were more tears running down her cheeks now. “Thank you, you too.” 

“But there’s a storm coming now. Go back and walk in my light to face it with your friends. Daunte is okay and the Vampire, be she an abomination, has nothing but ill will for the mindless and feral undead coming. You’ll need all the help you can get.” 

“Okay.” 

And she was laying on the floor again of that upstairs dancing hall. Her body felt numb and tingly, but her mobility was back. “Guys,” she said. “Guys I’m okay…but we’ve got a problem.” 

“Yeah,” said Taako. “Army of the undead. Magnus’s long lost daughter just told us…” 

“Daughter? How long was I down there?” Annemarie asked. 

 


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dead are coming.

The large sitting room is in a part of the house untouched by the carnage that was caused during the fight. There are trophies hanging on the wall, deer heads of all manner of sizes. The wood, the walls, the floors, almost everything in the room is stained a deep brown.

In another time Magnus might have come in just to admire the woodwork, but he hadn’t really noticed any of it. He was sitting in a plush leather chair between Annemarie and Merle.

Lissette stood behind a desk with her hands resting palm down. She was the spitting image of his deceased wife: the straight blonde hair and large brown eyes with the little dusting of freckles across the bridge of the nose. Even her voice sounded like Julia. “I don’t know where to start with all of this…” Lissette sounded exasperated.

“We had a promise to hold up,” Taako said. “To your…father I guess.”

Lissette held her hand up. “Let’s just take all of that ‘father-daughter’ shit and put it in a chest and lock it and put it on the back-burner and let it burn up,” she said.

Magnus could see Julia in her mannerisms and attitude. Could she have inherited that from her mother? There was a little smile she had done on the way into the room and it was exactly the same little smile he used to get from his wife. Merle glanced around the room and then back at Lissette. “So, then let’s talk about the the undead that you saw? Was someone controlling them?”

There was a glass of dark liquor off to the side of Lissette’s hand that she lifted and took two huge gulps. “Didn’t see anyone. These things were all over us. That…um…Garfield guy had one of those battlewagons. It’s probably the only reason that we’re alive still.”

“All of those people…” Annemarie said.

“The town is lost. Hell, half of the woods between here and Tolos are gone. They honestly should have reached this far by now,” Lissette said.

“They might have,” Boti spoke up finally. “The dead don’t usually have the intelligence to attack something in a group. If someone is controlling them then it seems to me that they might be massing them outside of the city.”

Annemarie glared at her. “I don’t really know why you would care. You’re like them…”

Boti turned, obviously offended. Her movements were all too graceful and perfectly fluid. “Sweetheart, I hope you realize that I depend on humans and other living creatures as a food source. If some army of undead overruns everything I can’t eat.”

“Well, we’re just honored to be your cattle,” Annemarie said.

“I apologized to you about Daunte and they said he was okay. I thought you were hunting me, you had the Pelor broach,” Boti said pointing to the gold clasped broach on Annemarie’s dress.

“Where’s Garfield now?” Asked Taako.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Lissette started, not sure if she had or hadn’t. “He’s up on the moon base that the Bureau of Balance used to use. They’re supposed to be sending help, but I wanted to come down alone and see what had happened.”

Merle sighed. “If there’s anyone we can count on for help it’s Lucretia. She’s never let us down before—well except that once.”

Lissette shook her head. “I’ve got to tell you that I don’t think there’s much chance of us holding this town,” she said. “Is there any harm in just evacuating and getting these people out of here.”

Boti cut in. “Well, there’s what I said earlier. They might be anticipating that could happen and they would have surrounded the town.”

“There’s an old railway that came through here,” Lissette said. “It’s not in operation, but it connects to the next town over. The lumber yard uses some trains to move their stock around, but they’re confined to a small set of tracks and not very fast moving. We can move the lumber yard trains over to the actual track and then…”

“We use the wood for fuel and fill the trains with anyone we can,” Magnus said. He hadn’t known this woman that was his daughter and she was raised by a man he couldn’t remember, but she seemed to turn out alright.

“Once they see you’re doing this, they’re going to rush the town. If their goal is to attack then they won’t want you escaping with all these people. The more people there are to kill, the more the dead will have,” Boti said.

“I’m aware of how it works. I just don’t like the idea that we’re supposed to stand and fight here with a bunch of dead weight,” Lissette said. “We cover them until we can get them on the trains and then we make a run for it with them.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Annemarie said. “But how do we move the train.”

“We have the foreman do that. He can gather a few workers and get the tracks clear. Then we have someone go round and round and quietly wake up the people.” Lissette said.

“We could use an alarm spell,” Taako said.

“And we would draw every flesh eater between here and the Sword Coast. Let the girl’s plan play out and then if we’re pressed for time we start an alarm.”

“We have to hurry,” Lissette said. “This time of night a lot of people will be at the bar and the drunker they get the more useless they are.”

Annemarie stepped forward. “We need to make sure that we tell Daunte all of this too.”

“It took a bit out of him, the fall. I think that we need to consider rushing him out of here on the train,” Lissette said as she swept her hair out of her face. “We give him the choice, but we don’t need a liability out there.”

“Okay, let’s get to it then,” Magnus clapped his hands and went to leave. Everyone moved around the same time.

Lissette leaned on the table and glanced around while everyone else gathered themselves. She eyed Magnus. “Can you hang back for a bit?”

He nodded and lingered beside the door to give her time to catch up and the two of them brought up the back of the line. “Look, this is awkward for both of us,” she started. “I know that…I look like someone who meant a lot to you…”

“You act like her,” Magnus said. “Your mannerisms and voice even…” he stopped himself. “I’m sorry.”

Lissette shook her head. “I didn’t know my mother. Kalan didn’t really give me any details and I figured that it was something to do with his grief. I’m glad there’s someone who honestly knew her.”

“Maybe we…start slow and go with the easiest thing. She was the best woman I’ve ever known. And I’ve been alive for around one hundred and fifty years…” Magnus chuckled.

 

* * *

 

It was an hour before the plan was in motion. The bar emptied into the streets to wake any of the able bodied yard workers that lived nearest. They split into three groups: the largest went through the streets to wake more people, the other two gathered weapons and got to work clearing the yard and moving a train. There was a crashes where they cut the chains holding the logs to the train and dumped them to make space on the trains.

The streets began to fill with people and the more of them that came out there were more people to go door to door. The train was against the river and that gave them some sort of natural barrier. The quickest way to the tracks was through the town. So they moved the people that were to evacuate to the area nearest the trains.

Annemarie and Taako set about to handing out anything that could count as a weapon for anyone who wanted to stay behind and help cover the escape. Magnus and Lissette were going door to door together making sure no one was left behind. Merle and Boti helped people to the trains while Daunte helped the lumber workers get the train sured up.

There was a large commotion near the front of the town. Magnus and Lissette were the nearest to it. Lissette pointed toward the city the front of the town where the loudest screams were emanating. “Oh no,” she pulled her bow.

“Is that them?” Magnus asked.

People were running and as they got closer Magnus could see that some of them weren’t among the living. The dead were dragging people down and ripping into them. Lissette took aim and loosed a shimmering white arrow into the one the creatures that was about to tear into someone. When the arrow hit the thing tumbled, screeching and writhing about.

“Come on,” Magnus said. Lissette was setting up another shot. “Come on,” he grabbed her arm and yanked her to run back to the town.

They raced for the train station, Magnus half pulling her along. Lissette still got her shot off as she ran. Somewhere in the distance Taako’s alarm spell rang out over the city.

The dead had caught on and they were coming.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus and Lissette do some bonding over combat. Annemarie and Taako create a battle tactic all their own.

Magnus Burnside had been through a Hell of a day. He awoke that morning a man who’s wife was long dead and he had largely avoided romantic entanglements since then. He was also a man who had never gotten to raise a child of his own. Sure, he had taught so many different kids that came through the doors of his school. 

Magnus had gone from thinking that he would die in battle somewhere in the course of his life to thinking he would die peacefully at home with friends. 

And now he had a daughter.

And he was sure that he was about to be ripped apart by rabid undead and forced to join their ranks. 

In the years since the Hunger Magnus hadn’t seen battle on this scale. He could hear the thundering feet of the hordes of corpses lumbering and charging through the streets of the city. They were too close to the carnage to run the rest of the way to the others and they were too far from the others to call out for help. 

Lissette grabbed hold of his shoulder and he glanced down and to his side to see her biting her chapped lip with a nervous look. He drew his axe back over his shoulder. “There’s no time,” he said as if she didn’t already know it too. 

Reaching back into her quiver, Lissette grasped four arrows. “This is a really fucking stupid idea, but here goes—“ she uttered an Elvish word and drew the arrows back with her bowstring. “You may want to find something to hold on to.” 

When she loosed the arrows they forked out slightly and plowed into the approaching wave of undead. A second later Magnus felt a heat as the street erupted in flames and light. Suddenly he was tumbling end over end there was a stinging on his skin from where the head had kissed him. He became aware that he was on the ground with the smell of smoke al around him.

Cinders rained down in the streets and there were chunks of undead everywhere. He looked to his left to see Lissette kneeling down and working her blonde curls back into a ponytail. She jumped to her feet and reached her hand down. “Come on, I can only do that so many times a day,” she said. 

Magnus took her hand, but didn’t brace his weight against her much smaller body. He balanced on the axe as he stood and then they were off through the streets running again. 

The creatures were coming in from all sides and it wasn’t just a matter of getting the survivors out anymore, it was a matter of having a place to get them out too. The river would slow them down on one side, but the train wouldn’t be at full speed right away and if there were a pile of undead on the track they might be able to gum it up. 

“This way,” Lissette hollered as she lead Magnus into a small breezeway the forked through a building. She climbed up some stairs that led out of a small hole and onto the roof. 

Magnus turned back and gave the support of the stairs a quick smack with Railsplitter before following her on across the roof. The houses and buildings here were sturdy with dark lumber from the nearby forest and there wasn’t even a wobble as they charged across them jumping from roof to roof with the flickering red-orange light of the fires behind them. 

And then there was a monstrous screech that sounded like a human trying very hard to make someone think it was a bird. Magnus paused and looked back into the night sky to see a huge pair of wings encompassing a human shape with a muscular torso. He could see it was topless, but also that there was something wrong with it. 

It dove and then two more figures appeared on either side of it poised for the attack. Then Magnus noticed it’s breast, one of them anyway, was torn clean off. It had a ghoulish droop to one eye and it’s gums face was gaunt and ragged. Zombie Harpies. 

He pushed Lissette down covering her with his body and holding her flat to the roof. The thing’s claws ripped sealing lines of pain into his back, cutting right through the armor as it sailed over him and swooped back into the sky. 

“What the Hell are those?” 

Magnus looked back to see the other two flapping their wings in much the same position they had been in. He rolled over to one side, “There,” he pointed. Lissette position her body so that she was hanging off the roof just enough to draw her arm back with the bowstring and fired into one of the creatures. 

The harpy cried out causing it’s companion to shout a reply. “Keep going,” Magnus said.

“Hey, let’s not be a backseat archer,” Lissette fired and struck her first target in the head causing it to corkscrew down into the street on its head. 

Magnus saw the sharp, grotesquely taloned feet dip down and raised his shield, but they passed right over him. Then he heard Lissette cry out.

“Mother fucker!” 

He was on his feet running across the roof to chase the harpy that had Lissette clutched in its oddly human-like feet carrying her along just above the roof tops. He tore the grappling hook from his belt and whirled it above his head to get speed. 

As the harpy dipped down off to the edge of the roof he let the grappling hook fly and leaped for the creature’s back. The grappling hook wrapped around the thing’s neck and caught on its skin to hook in snug and Magnus wrapped his legs around it’s waist and tried to pull down on its wings. 

Lissette seemingly remember the gauntlet at she had taken from Garfield and punched upward into the harpy’s face knocking it off balance. Magnus managed to kick it in the feet causing it to drop Lissette safely onto the next roof, but with the weight gone it was free to soar higher now. Magnus pulled the rope on his grappling hook tearing the leathery skin of the harpy and spraying the air with chunks of rotten flesh. 

“Hang on,” he heard Lissette shout from the rooftop and it was then he realized how far above the city he was. In the distance the Bureau of balance’s former headquarters hung low in the sky and he seemed to be growing every closer to it. 

The fire that Lissette had started was choking off the upper side of the city, trapping a pack of undead from getting to victims through the most direct route so he figured that he had done something right. Magnus lacked magic and any sort of enchantments that could save him. He either killed this thing and fell or he let it kill him and lived.

Here was Magnus sans axe hundreds of feet above the chaos of a city griped by waves of death and he made the only choice that he could. The right thing. The brash one. 

Magnus rushes in. 

He pulls the grappling hook free with one hand and struggles to get to the harpy’s neck. He manages to dig the hooks in good and pull the rope into the fresh gash in the skin tearing back on the things head and pulling it away from the body. 

Hands gripped tight on the rope and legs wrapped around the harpy's body, Magnus pulls the rope tight to choke it off, trying to cut through the rest of the neck. The harpy lets out a piercing gurgling sound until whatever is in its throat that allows it to make that almost animalistic sound is severed and it’s doing nothing but wheezing and sputtering what little blood it still has out. The spine gives like plaster and Magnus lets the rope unravel as his body drops away from the harpy toward the street below. 

“Be better, Lissette. Be the good girl I didn’t get to raise you to be,” he mutters. 

Maybe it’s intervention on the part of the Raven Queen, but he never feels the impact. Julia is there at his side with her freckled face smiling and those big chestnut eyes with the little wrinkles at the corner from all that damn smiling. 

She smells like wood oils and clean sweat and he wants nothing more than to taste her lips. He hesitated. “I saw her. I saw our baby. She’s just like her mother—smart and brave and beautiful and…just a bad ass.” 

“You had some hand in that, now just rest,” Julia pulls his head down to her chest and he can feel the warmth of her through the tunic. He can hear her heart beat. 

“You would be proud,” he said as everything goes dark. 

And the last words he heard were: “I am.” 

* * *

Though he hated to admit it Taako was kind of at home in battle. He was a cooking mage who had found a way to make his skills count for something deadly. He was often the tide-turner. He was the strategic heart of the group and as he watched the waves of dead flow through the city like a horde of rats coming for them he didn’t worry. 

He muttered something under his breath. 

“I should ready a channeling, eh?” Annemarie asked. He doesn’t reply. “I’m going to go ahead and take that as a yes.” 

Little did she know that as she readied her action Taako was encasing them in invisible walls of force to keep the dead out. When he finished he looked up. “There. Now wait until they’re all around us.”

“What?” 

“Just trust me, sweetheart.” 

When the zombies and wights rammed into the nothingness around them she looked at him with a realization. “Now, shoot your shot,” said Taako. 

Annemarie was about to open her mouth to say the words as she raised her hand with the Morningstar held tight and she heard Pelor’s voice. “You’ve got it.” 

And another voice. “And I’ll help.” 

Her eyes glowed hot red and her locks of red-orange hair flared up around her like a lion’s mane. A torrential wave of energy shot out from her, shattered the force wall and reducing the dead in the street to dust. 

She slumped over against Taako. “Wow,” she said weakly. “Did I do that?” 

“Shit, I hope that Boti wasn’t near here…” Taako said. 

The pair of them made their way down the street back toward the train, the blown off husks of the dead rained down, burnt to an ashy crisp. But when they looked back there were more undead, almost like the group they had just destroyed had reset. There seemed to be no end of the massive moving army of abominations. 

Annemarie let out a ragged sigh. “Get a force wall up,” she braced herself on the Morningstar. We’ve got more work to do.” 

* * *

Magnus opened his eyes to see Julia staring down at him, her curls brushing against the sides of his cheeks. He reached up and felt the smooth curve of her face with a calloused hand. “Julia?”

A pole hit him in the chest as something was thrust against him. “Ew, were you going to kiss me?” 

“Where am I?” 

“It’s me, Lissette. You had one of those fancy tailor-made suits on from the shop up the road here…they have that feather fall spell in them. Lucky for you actually—I thought I’d lost another dad.” 

Magnus had totally forgotten. So much had happened since he last sleep and his body felt drained. Why was he so tired? Age?

“Don’t pass out on me again, please.” Lissette’s shoulders were bleeding from where the creature had dug into her. “The claws are poison or something. I think it’s part of their _affliction_. It makes you dizzy and all that.” 

“I think it made me see stuff.” 

“Yeah, well they got you pretty bad. I stole a potion from that cat-headed-asshole earlier so I’ve already used it on your back. You owe me thirty gold and…back pay for like two decades of allowance.” 

Magnus smirked as he climbed to his feet grabbing hold of the axe she had pressed to his chest. “We’ll have to discuss some terms later on.” 

Lissette pointed her thumb back over her shoulder. “There’s more dead coming through the city. The fire forced them to divert. I get the feeling someone is steering them. We need to meet up with the others.” 

“Which way?” He asked.

“I saw what looked like a massive explosion of holy energy that way. Let’s start there.” Lissette said. 


End file.
